Summers Pryce
by Castle
Summary: Alternate to Season 6/7 of BTVS, 4/5 of Angel. Buffy stays dead. Dawn becomes the Slayer as her blood fools the power. After a while, she comes under the teaching of Wesley Wyndham-Pryce. NO ROMANCE BETWEEN DAWN & WES! Probable alternative relationships.
1. Prologue: Dream of Might—Have—Been

Summers Pryce: Prologue

A Dream of Might-Have-Been

_Reality has many facets, Slayer — like a gem within a gem, faceted and layered. Come, and I will show you one such facet . . . and a thing that might have been._

_Why are you showing it to me?_ the Slayer asked. _Why now?_

_Because you need to understand,_ the voice answered. _You need to see — that you may do what needs done. It will take courage. Courage, audacity . . . and the strength to change the world. _

_You can change the world . . . if you can be made to see. And if you can find the courage._

_See. Know that we cannot tell you directly what needs be done. We can only hint, for even we are constrained by rules from above us._

_See . . . and understand._

"Dawn, the hardest thing in this world . . . is to live in it," Buffy said. She touched Dawn's cheek, there on the lopsided gantry above Sunnydale, and smiled at her little sister for the last time. "Be brave. Live . . . for me."

Buffy turned, charged down the extended plank that stood out from the gantry before Dawn could stop her — and leaped into the Hell Gate, refused to simply fall, dove in and accepted her fate like a Slayer.

"BUFFY!" Dawn screamed — and started down the gantry with reckless speed, not caring about her blood-slicked feet, not caring about falling, only hoping that somehow Buffy would defeat death —

Out of the corner of her eye, Dawn saw the Hell Gate close, saw it collapse back to nothing, saw Sunnydale return to what passed for normal . . . and her heart _broke_.

Buffy lay broken and bloody on the ground — and her friends stood around her, staring and weeping.

Dawn started crying, and remembered nothing but crying for a long time after.

Inside the girl, as she wept for the only family she had left, something . . . changed. Energy that had been awakened by Glorificus flickered and died, and Dawn Summers became truly human, completely human, as the energies that she had been made from winked out of existence, left her a girl, no longer a mystical key.

Then other energies flowed into her, changed her — but in her grief, her pain, she never noticed.

"He's . . . not coming," Willow said, staring at the phone in disbelief. She put the handset down, looked up at Tara, tears starting to stream from her eyes. "He says . . . he says that this part of his life is over, and that he's staying in Spain."

"But . . . but he's their father!" Tara said. "H-he can't just . . . can he?"

"I don't know," Willow said. "I don't know, but . . . I can't see any way to make him come back."

"But . . . doesn't he care?" Tara asked. "Buffy's dead, and Dawn needs him!"

Willow stared at the phone again, trying to wrap her brain around the offhand tone of voice that Hank Summers had replied in when Willow told him that Buffy had died, and Dawn been left a virtual orphan.

"He said . . . he said, he was sorry, but that his new wife is pregnant, and he can't . . . he can't endanger his relationship with her over girls from a family he stopped being a part of years ago." Willow shook her head and said, "What an asshole!"

Then she tried to figure out what to say to Dawn.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Giles, but I can't approve your application," the woman from Social Services said. "You aren't even an American citizen, I can't give you custody of Dawn Summers."

"Well, what — what about Willow Rosenberg?" Giles asked, trying not to sound desperate.

"A twenty year old college student with no job?" the woman said. "Who isn't even related to the girl? Please, Mr. Giles — don't be ridiculous.

"I'm afraid that Dawn Summers will have to go into foster care, since her father is refusing to accept his responsibilities towards her."

Xander took a run at it — but he was dismissed as too young. Even Spike tried to figure out something (not that Giles would have allowed _that)_ — but nothing would work. Buffy had been the last thing preventing Dawn from entering the California foster care system . . . and with her gone, there was nothing that any of them could do.

"Okay, well . . . Dawn, you be good, okay?" Willow said, trying not to cry and failing. "I'll email you, and we'll write, and maybe we'll come see you in LA, if your foster parents will let us."

"Sure," Dawn said, her voice dull and lifeless. "Bye, then."

Willow and Tara both hugged her, both wept — but Dawn didn't weep, and only barely hugged back. She felt dead inside . . . and couldn't make that go away.

Anya didn't weep, and seemed embarrassed by Xander's tears. Dawn didn't react.

Giles . . . he almost got through. His own reserve would not let him cry, though his voice was rough and his hug very tight. Had he set free his tears, Dawn might have reacted, might have broken — but he couldn't and she didn't.

Dawn got in the car with the social worker, and rode off to her new home with an affluent and childless couple in Los Angeles.

Don and Karen Thorpe tried, they really did. They were kind, and gentle, and generous — and Dawn, lost and trapped in her own pain and sense of abandonment, was surly and sullen and intractable. Her grades, once A's and Bs, dropped to C's and D's, and she spent all her time at the Thorpe's in her room, clutching Mr. Gordo, Buffy's old stuffed pig, and staring blankly at whatever happened to be on TV. She didn't even check her email for so long that by the time she finally remembered to, the account had been shut down for inactivity. The letters she got from Willow she read — but never answered.

After three months of this, the Thorpes asked her point blank if she wanted to stay.

"No," Dawn said — and told them the bald-faced truth, gave them a compliment of sorts. "You're good people. You deserve to have someone who can care back. I should go."

The next foster home was in a less affluent neighborhood, with less affluent people. She lasted another three months before they asked her to go. She didn't argue, she even apologized for being so hard to deal with — but she went.

The next pace belonged to a couple who were barely in the middle class. Dawn lasted four months with them, despite the ardent dislike of the other girl the had custody of. But when the girl stole Mr. Gordo, Dawn snapped — and took Buffy's stuffed pig back by force. In the process, she accidentally broke the other girl's nose — and that was all she wrote. She moved out and on to the next foster home the next day.

There, oddly enough, she felt almost at home.

Reggie and Donna Garson lived on the northern edge of recently-renamed South Los Angeles, formerly South Central Los Angeles, a crime-ridden area with wide ethnic diversity — and a serious crime and gang problem. They both had blue-collar jobs, Reggie driving a bakery truck and Donna working in a convenient store as assistant manager. They had gotten into foster care only for the money — most of which they drank away, both being borderline alcoholics.

But they did feed her, didn't make her work, didn't care about her comings and goings. They left her to herself, told her they'd do that so long as she pretended to be getting along well when Social Services paid a visit — and didn't get in trouble with the police.

And the damned dreams backed off some. Since Buffy died, Dawn had been having weird, monster-filled dreams, sometimes waking herself up covered in sweat and breathing like she'd just run a marathon. At the Garson's house, the dreams started to . . . fade.

Dawn started school in late August, and did keep her grades at C's, not wanting to get taken out of this place where people left her alone.

Then came the day in early October when she ran afoul of a gang.

The Crips and the Bloods were a huge presence here, but at school, there were smaller gangs — all drawn along racial lines. And Dawn, being Caucasian, was in the minority at her school, which was mostly African American and Hispanic, with some Asian Americans and a dash of Caucasians thrown in like spice in a stew.

She left school one afternoon in late September, and started for her bus stop. She came around a corner to find a small Asian girl being harassed by a group of six Hispanic guys in the colors of the Aztec Kings, a gang that largely dominated her school.

One of the guys had the girl's long hair wrapped around his fist, and he was shouting in her face.

"Bitch, you don't cough up, we goan cut you!" the boy snarled.

"Hey!" Dawn said, all unthinking. "Leave her alone!"

The boy — Dawn had seen him around, but didn't know his name — turned to her and said, "Fuck off, _puta_ — or you're next!"

"Bite me!" Dawn said automatically. "I said let her go!"

"Diego, kill this bitch," the boy said, and turned back to his victim.

From behind her, Dawn heard the click of a switchblade opening, and turned to face the knife wielder, thinking, _Oh, shit — what am I doing? I can't take on all these guys — I'm not Buffy!_

That thought barely had time to flit through her brain before Diego lunged at her, knife reaching for her gut.

But . . . he was moving so _slow_ — almost like slow-motion! She had all the time in the world to step back and sideways — and then something inside her _caught fire,_ and she brought her foot up, cocked at the knee, and kicked Diego across the gut, foot passing neatly under the extended arm and the knife.

Diego flew backwards, hit the wall of the little Asian market they were outside of, and crumpled to the ground, gasping and wheezing.

"Holy shit," Dawn said aloud. "How did I . . . ?"

Then came a torrent of angry Spanish, and Dawn snapped back to reality. Even as two more gang members stepped forward to try and grab her arms, Dawn grabbed the nearer one by the arm, pivoted, and slammed him into his friend, sending both crashing to the ground. Another came at her with a knife, and Dawn let the instincts that had taken over her have their way, let them move her closer to the boy, inside the arc of his knife swing. She pivoted her upper body, slammed the edge of her left hand into the wrist of the gang-banger's right hand, making his hand spasm open and drop the knife. At the same time, she popped him in the nose with the back of her right fist, breaking bone and sending him staggering backwards to fall to the ground.

The last unoccupied gang member looked at Dawn, saw the feral grin spreading across her face — and turned and ran.

Dawn turned to the gang leader, who stood there staring at her like she'd grown two more heads and four more arms, his left hand still tangled in the Asian girl's hair.

"I told you to let her go," Dawn said, her voice low and menacing. "Do it!"

The gang-banger opened his hand, shook it free of the girl's hair — and took off running.

Dawn watched him go, a feeling of excitement and accomplishment ripping through her, and grinned. She looked at the Asian girl — pretty little thing, and that waist-length hair was gorgeous — and said, "You should probably get home, okay?"

"I — yes," the girl said. "Yes. Thank you!"

Dawn watched the girl go, then turned and went to catch her bus, her mind awhirl.

"I'm . . . I'm a Slayer!" she said as she sat down on the graffiti-covered bench to wait for her bus. "How did . . . ?

"Oh. Oh! Of course!"

Her mind flashed back to Buffy's twentieth birthday, her _last_ birthday, the day that Dawn had found out she wasn't human, but some sort of mystical key. She remembered Buffy's words that awful night — words that had made it less awful.

"It's blood," Buffy had said, pressing Dawn's hand to one of her own wounds. "Summers blood. It's just like mine. It doesn't matter where you came from, or how you got here, _you are my sister_."

Then forward to Buffy swan-diving diving into the Hell Gate, her blood, so close to Dawn's, making the Gate close, shutting it down.

"And if Buffy's blood was close enough to mine to fool the Hell Gate," Dawn said softly, "then mine would be close enough to hers to fool the Slayer power!

"I really am a Slayer!"

She went back to the Garson's with her mind tumbling through the seemingly infinite possibilities.

An hour after dark, armed with a backpack full of stakes and wearing the cross that Angel had given Buffy when they first arrived in Sunnydale, Dawn went looking for vampires to slay.

As she went through the living room, Reggie glanced up at her, said, "You gonna be gone long?"

"Probably, yeah," Dawn said. "Got some stuff to do."

"Grab me some smokes," he said, handing her a ten. "Two packs, Winston one hundreds. Leave 'em on the kitchen table, and keep the change."

"Okay," Dawn said. "Thanks."

"Just don't forget," Reggie said as she left.

She grabbed his cigarettes at the closest convenient store, tossed them in a hard-sided pocket of her backpack, and caught a bus for downtown LA and as much trouble as she could find.

She found vampires. She killed vampires. It was work — but the same instincts that had told her how to handle the gang-bangers that afternoon told her what to do, led her through the fights — and she let them. Three dead vampires later, she headed back to the Garson's, arriving at a little after three in the morning. She put Reggie's smokes on the kitchen table, went to bed — and actually got up for school.

For almost two weeks, she kept it up. Her grades slipped a little she got D's on a couple of tests, and on a paper — but she kept going, kept her head above water. Somewhere else, with someone besides the Garsons taking care of her, she might not be able to do this, might not be able to fight the fight that had come to mean everything to her.

Then, late in the evening on Sunday, October twentieth, she ran into one of the last people she would have expected to meet — and maybe the only one who could help her do what she had to do, learn what she had to learn, if she wanted to do the job right.

Dawn later remembered that night as the start of her truly becoming a Slayer.


	2. 1: Watch From Dawn to Gloom

Summers Pryce: Chapter 1

Watch From Dawn to Gloom

Wesley Wyndham-Pryce left his apartment to go for a walk after he realized that he wasn't going to sleep any time soon.

He walked out of his building, stopped to check his jacket for his weapons, confirmed that they were there by touch, then turned and walked south.

He walked aimlessly, not much caring where he went, just needing to be where Lilah Morgan hadn't been, and where she couldn't find him.

_What are you doing, sleeping with her?_ Wes asked himself. _You know she's only using you, and you excuse it by saying that you're only using her. But is sexual gratification worth what it's doing to your self-image? To your chances of ever earning your way into Angel's good graces again?_

He didn't truly blame Angel for hating him. Yes, all right, Sahjhan had rigged the prophecies to make it appear that Angel would kill Connor. No excuse, that — Wesley knew that he should have checked them out more deeply, perhaps sent them to Rupert Giles — there was a man whose research skills overshadowed Wesley's own, he'd not have been fooled.

Angel had said that he might forgive Wesley someday. But even if that were true, not just some effort to get the information Wes had on Cordelia . . . who knew when someday might be? And if Angel found out that Wesley was seeing Lilah . . . it could only push "someday" even further back.

"I'm being a fool," Wesley said aloud, but softly. "A damned fool. I'm acting like a bloody teenager, thinking with my hormones.

"What happened to me . . . ?"

_You betrayed your friend,_ Wesley answered himself silently. _Regardless of your research, you should have just . . . told him. Or at the very least told someone else at Angel Investigations, explained, not just . . . acted_.

And now he lacked direction. Finding Angel, redeeming himself that much, it had been enough, for a time. It had given him a purpose. The little gang he'd been working with, killing vampires with, the remnants of Holtz's crew, that had given him a little something to hold onto . . . but not enough.

_Once upon a time, I was a Watcher,_ he thought. _I bollixed the job rather badly, yes — but I could do it, now. What I've learned with Angel and his people, I could use it, I could be the Watcher I should have been. Perhaps . . . perhaps I could go to the Council, reapply . . . ._

_No. No, who am I fooling? The things I've learned, I've learned from Angel — and he is hardly one of the Council's favorite people, regardless of his soul_.

Wesley walked on, thinking in circles, getting nowhere. After a time, he heard a familiar sound from down an alley ahead — the roar of an angry vampire. He pulled a stake from inside his jacket, and moved quickly but cautiously to the mouth of the alley. He glanced down and saw . . . the unexpected. Two vampires, both attacking a girl — tall, well built, but undeniably female.

Then Wesley wondered if he should doubt his eyes; the vampires turned and ran!

A moment later he started doubting either his eyes or the sanity of the girl — as she gave chase.

He had to see this, had to know what was going on — so he followed, moving cautiously — this could be a trap aimed at him, after his vampire hunting activities, both with Angel and with Holtz's former gang, but it didn't feel that way.

He caught up with them in time to see the vampires realize that they'd run into a blind alley, and turn to face the girl. They charged as one, and she moved sideways just before they arrived, so that only one could attack her. She blocked the punch of the vampire who could reach her effectively, if a bit clumsily, and punched the vampire hard enough to send him _flying_ backwards several feet.

_Impossible!_ Wesley thought. _I'd have heard if Faith had been killed, and this girl is too tall for Faith, so I can't be seeing . . .what I think I'm seeing_.

_That cannot be a Slayer!_

Yet the girl moved with the grace and speed of a Slayer, and the instincts she demonstrated were those of a Slayer untrained, caught unaware by the power, unnoticed by the Council, like Buffy Summers had been.

_But how?_ Wesley thought. _The Council was sure that another death for Buffy would not activate another Slayer. It might return to her is she were resurrected, but it couldn't have passed to another a second time, as it did from Buffy to Kendra after the Master drowned her!_

The girl had the upper hand, still — until a third vampire dropped from the roof of one of the buildings that made the dead-end alley. At that point, she shifted to fighting defensively — but she had no formal training, and she was in trouble.

Instincts brought to the fore by working with Angel, Gunn, Cordelia and Fred came to bear, and Wesley moved to help. The girl hadn't learned to think in a circle yet, and that had her in trouble. She moved well, she had the toughness and the strength — but training made the difference between Slayer and corpse.

Even as the girl staked the first one and grappled with the second, the third grabbed her by the hair — long and brown — and jerked her back from its companion. It pulled her back to biter her — and Wesley staked it from behind.

The girl didn't waste time looking back to see who had helped her, just lunged forward into the remaining vampire, punched it twice in the head to disorient it — then slammed her stake into its chest and watched it dust.

Wesley had to give her credit — the girl took a long step forward into the small pool of light that came from a hooded bulb over the back door of some business or another, away from the unknown person behind her, then turned quickly, hands up and ready to block or strike.

She froze, he froze — and they stared at one another for a long moment before she said in a low, unsure voice, "Wesley?"

"My god," Wes breathed, staring in open shock. "Dawn? Dawn Summers?"

"Wow," Dawn said, taking a deep breath. "Small world, huh, Wes?"

"Yes it is," Wesley agreed, still staring. "Dawn . . . how did you . . . ? You're a Slayer? How?"

"I don't really know," Dawn admitted, stepping out from the light. "I have theories, but I don't _know_."

"I can't believe —" Wesley suddenly remembered Buffy's death, and he shook himself. "Dawn, I'm terribly sorry about Buffy. I wish . . . well, all of us wished we could have been there, helped somehow."

"Thanks," Dawn said, her voice low and almost robotic, emotionless. She offered her hand then, and said, "Well, Wes, it was nice to see you again, and I'm grateful for the save, but I have to get moving — there are more of these things operating in this neighborhood, death-and-disappearance rate makes that obvious. I need to find them."

"Dawn, wait," Wesley said. "I don't think you should be doing this, not —"

"Wes, please," Dawn said over her shoulder as she started walking away. "I don't want to hear it, okay? I know, I'm young, I'm untrained, I have no business risking my life like this, and all that stuff — but I'm going to do this. It's done, I'm not stopping, an—"

"Dawn, I wasn't going to tell you not to do this," Wesley said — and she stopped and looked back at him.

"You just said you didn't think I should be doing this, Wesley," Dawn said, looking suspicious.

"Had you let me finish my sentence," Wesley said in a carefully patient voice, "it would have gone thusly; I don't think you should be doing this, not without the proper training and support. I can give you the former — and perhaps help you with the latter."

Dawn stared at him for a long, long minute — and Wesley simply let her, gave her the right to decide for herself with no further pushing from him.

"Well," Dawn said slowly, "maybe we should talk. There's an all night diner a couple of blocks off. I could drink a Coke."

"And I could use some tea," Wesley said. "Are you thinking of Patterson's Diner?"

"Yeah, that's it," Dawn said. "Come on."

They walked in silence, each absorbed with their own thoughts, and sat down across from one another in a back booth at the diner. When the waitress arrived, Wesley ordered coffee and Dawn a Coke, and Wes offered to buy dinner for Dawn, which she accepted.

They got their drinks, and Wesley said, "I'd like to hear your theory on how you got the Slayer power, if I may?"

"Okay," Dawn said, sounding lackluster, but not so much as when he'd expressed his sympathies about Buffy's death. "Simple, really. Look, Buffy's blood matched mine so closely that it fooled the Hell Gate that my blood opened into thinking she was me. So I'm thinking that my blood was close enough to hers to fool the Slayer power, and it dived into me. I didn't notice for a long time, but . . . I haven't been really active or anything. Mostly I've been a couch potato, until a couple of weeks ago."

"My god," Wesley said, smiling a little. "Dawn, that's almost certainly correct. And to think that when I first met you, I thought you a silly little girl."

"That's okay, I thought you were a pompous, blithering idiot," Dawn said. "But you know . . . you look different. Not just the beard, though that is good — no, you look . . . well like you've gotten hard. In a good way, I mean."

"I suppose I have, yes," Wesley agreed. "I've grown, I think. And . . . I've made mistakes, bad ones. I may never be able to make up for them — but at least I've found the strength to try."

"It's a start," Dawn said. "So . . . You were working with Angel, last I heard. How is he?"

"I . . . last I knew, he was well," Wesley said. "But therein lay one of my mistakes, Dawn. I'm no longer a part of Angel Investigations — nor do I feel as though I deserve to be. I . . . made a horrible mistake, and Angel and the others no longer trust me. I don't blame them, but . . . I wish I'd not done it."

"Everybody makes mistakes," Dawn said. "I've got mine, too.

"Wes . . . will you really train me?"

"If that's what you want, and if we can come to an agreement about . . . certain things, yes," Wesley said cautiously.

Their food came before Dawn could ask what things they needed to agree on, and they both concentrated on the meal for a few minutes. When Dawn finished her meal, she sat back and waited for Wesley, let the waitress take her plate and refill her Coke while she waited.

"Much better," Wesley said. "I hadn't eaten today."

"I hadn't eaten since lunch, so thanks," Dawn said. "So . . . I'm ready to listen to the things you think we need to agree to, Wesley. But I should tell you . . . I've got my own requirements if this is going to work."

"Fair enough," Wesley said. "First . . . you've proven yourself in combat, obviously — these weren't your first vampires, I could tell. But you aren't ready for all the things you should be, not yet. Now, I'm not about to tell you that I don't want you patrolling — but I will say that I don't want you patrolling alone. I will accompany you, until you're better prepared. Non-negotiable."

"Not a problem," Dawn said. "Next?"

"Your sister taught Giles a very valuable lesson," Wesley said. "And after what I saw on graduation day, I am willing to say that I feel that I have learned it, too. So I will not try to prevent you from having a social life, though I will ask that you allow me to meet anyone that you feel you need to tell about the existence of vampires and other supernatural creatures _before_ you tell them, and that we discuss it first. Now, while I realize that this can't always happen — Buffy didn't intend to tell Xander and Willow, as I understand it, but circumstances forced her hand — I would appreciate being consulted and given a chance to meet anyone that you tell deliberately."

"That's . . . fair," Dawn said. "But . . . Wes, right now, I'm not feeling very sociable. Maybe . . . maybe later. But not now. So . . . if I get all gung ho for a while, try to be the best Slayer I can be, will you try to accept it when I am ready to have a life?"

"Agreed," Wesley said. "Now . . . last condition; school. You maintain attendance and grades."

"Okay, but can you help tutor me in Algebra II? It's kicking my ass." Dawn grinned at his surprised look, said, "Look, Wes . . . I figured out that school? Not that bad. At least not one that isn't in a combat zone."

"I'm quite good at maths, so . . . agreed," Wesley said. "Now . . . I should like to hear your requirements."

"Well, you already hit one of them," Dawn said. "Social life — so that's a done deal. Second one is an add on to that; someday, I'm gonna wanna date. When I do . . . I date whom I want. No plans for dating any vampires, honest, so it won't be that hard to agree, I hope."

"Well, can we agree on a lack of both vampires and hardened criminals?" Wesley asked.

"Okay, but that won't be a thing," Dawn said. "I've never been all that fond of the 'bad boy' type. I prefer my guys with brains."

"All right, so . . . next?" Wesley said, amazed at how easy this was going.

"This one . . . Wesley, I . . . I don't think I can be here." Dawn sat back and hugged herself tightly. "I can't be here any more. I can't be . . . there are too many memories here. I lived her with Buffy and Mom and Dad for years, and then . . . Wes, I need to be away from LA. Maybe away from California. I mean, I know that sounds awful, and maybe it isn't possible, maybe you don't want to go, but —"

"Leaving Los Angeles is fine with me," Wesley said. "Leaving California is fine with me, Dawn."

She stared for a long moment, then said, "Okay. So . . . where do we go? How do we pay for it?"

"Leave the paying to me," Wesley said. "As for where . . . there is a second Hellmouth in Cleveland, you know."

Dawn winced and shook her head. "I'm not ready for that, Wesley, not yet. Maybe . . . maybe later, after I'm trained up."

"Hmm, yes," Wesley said. "Sorry — but a Hellmouth is almost the Holy Grail of being a Watcher."

"So . . . um, are we doing this all legal-like, or . . . not so legal?" Dawn asked.

"I'm afraid it will have to be . . . extralegal," Wesley said. "Does that present a problem for you?"

"Not really," Dawn said. "My fosters . . . not exactly the Family of the Year, okay? I won't mind leaving them. Oh, I will leave a note they can show Social Services, saying, 'sorry, you were nice, but I can't stay,' or something like that. They weren't horrible. They just . . . aren't good, either."

"All right," Wesley said. "So . . . as to where; there are a limited number of places where I can set up what I have in mind, Dawn, and where you can get the sort of opponents you'll need to test yourself against as you train. Going east from here, and discounting Cleveland, those cities are Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia, Washington DC and New York.

"I leave the choice to you."

Dawn stared at him for a moment, saw that he meant it, and said, "Okay, well . . . Chicago, also bad. My Aunt Arlene is there, and I know it's not her fault she couldn't afford to take me in, but . . . I can't.

"Detroit . . . maybe. Very possibly. I remember snow from a visit to Chicago, and I could do with some snow in my life. Philadelphia, also possible. Washington, DC? No, I'd be afraid of finding out how many demons there are in the government, thanks.

"New York . . . too much. Too big. Too . . . it's the LA of the east coast. No.

"Okay . . . okay, coin toss time."

She pulled a quarter from her pants pocket, held it on her thumb, said, "Heads, Detroit, tails, Philadelphia," and flipped the coin, let it land on the table. It rolled, it wobbled — and it landed heads up.

"Detroit, then," Wesley said. "All right . . . how soon can you be ready to go?"

"All I care about taking is my clothes, Mr. Gordo — a stuffed pig that was Buffy's — and maybe two dozen books," Dawn said. "And I'll need some winter clothes when we get to Detroit."

"We'll take care of it when we get there," Wesley said. "So . . . when can you be ready?"

"If I catch the eleven-thirty bus, I can be packed and ready by two-thirty, three at the latest," Dawn said. "But I imagine you n—"

"Give me your foster parents' address," Wesley said. "I'll pick you up at four AM sharp — I need a little more time to pack."

Dawn blinked again, nodded slowly, and wrote the Garsons' address on a card that the Social Services lady had left so that Dawn could reach her.

"All right," Wesley said, picking up the check and standing. "Dawn . . . thank you."

"No, I think I need to thank you," Dawn said. "Wesley . . . I needed this."

"Then we're in the same boat," Wesley said, and held out his hand. "Shall we sake on a mutually beneficial endeavor?"

Dawn shook his hand — and found herself smiling so widely that it hurt a little as she followed Wesley to the door, and onto the street.

"Four o'clock," he said. "I'll be driving a black Chevrolet Trailblazer."

"I'll be ready," Dawn said.

"Until then," Wesley said, and turned towards his apartment as Dawn ran off to catch the eleven-thirty bus back to the Garsons' house.


	3. 2: Fare Ye Well, Wherever Ye Fare

Summers Pryce: Chapter 2

Fare Ye Well, Wherever Ye Fare

Packing up was not that big a deal for Wesley Wyndham-Price. He was neat by habit, and that made packing easier. But before he started, he had one more thing to do, a very important thing.

He went to the lockbox in his bedroom closet, and pulled out his copy of D'Angelo's Demons of Rarity. The book had been a gift from his father, a graduation gift on Wesley's completing his Watcher training. It was one of four copies left in the world — at least, four solid copies. Wesley had long since scanned the pages into his computer, saved them as PDF files.

It was worth a fortune — a _large_ fortune. And Wes knew someone who wanted to buy it, wanted that very, very badly. Yes, it had been a gift from his father, but . . . Wesley knew he had issues with his father, and thought this might be the perfect way to begin overcoming those issues.

He set the book down, picked up his phone, and called the number that he had for the buyer, who had, after all, told him to call at any time, day or night, if he decided to sell.

"Good evening, Mr. Houston," Wesley said when the phone was answered before even completing a single ring. "This is Wesley Wyndham-Pryce. You once offered me a very large sum of money for my copy of Demons of Rarity, if you recall . . . . Yes, actually, I have decided to sell the book, sir — at auction. Now, since you've expressed an interest already, I thought I would offer you a chance to buy it before I contact the auction house . . . yes, that's right. No, no — it's only a common courtesy, Mr. Houston . . . . Yes, you're quite welcome.

"Now, given that I am offering you a chance at buying it before auction, I'm afraid you'll have to make a better offer than what you had before — we both know what sort of price I can expect at auction. However, I thought — yes, sir? Ah. Yes, that is more than satisfactory. Can you transfer the funds to my account?"

A moment later, Wesley sat down at his computer, went to the bank in the Cayman Islands that he used, made sure his account hadn't been shut down for inactivity or its pathetically tiny balance, and saw that it was still there. "If you'd like, I can bring the book to you, or you can come here, and we can do the funds transfer th—really? Well, yes, that's very kind of you, sir. One moment and I'll give you the number."

A few moments later, Wesley sat and stared at a screen telling him that he had more money than he'd ever expected to see in his life.

"Yes, the transfer is complete," Wesley said, starting the process of transferring the majority of the money to his account in Lichtenstein, that this could not be undone — not that he thought it would be, Mr. Houston wasn't a criminal. "All right, Mr. Houston — you have my address, why don't you come and get the book. And sir, given the sum involved, I do hope you'll understand that I'll want you to come yourself . . . . Yes, all right. I'll see you shortly."

Wesley smiled, and looked at his balance in the Lichtenstein bank — nineteen million, five hundred thousand dollars, and another five hundred thousand in his Cayman Islands account.

"I should have done that years ago," he said as he stood to start his packing.

Houston picked up the book twenty minutes later, having made record time to Wesley's apartment, shook Wes's hand, and asked if he might send Wes a list of other rare books that he was interested in.

"You must have an interest in rare books of the supernatural," Houston said. "Perhaps in your search for books you want, you'll find one that I want — mutually beneficial."

"Certainly, that would be fine," Wes said. "Email me the list — I'm leaving LA soon, but I'll contact you if I find something you're interested in."

Houston left, and Wesley packed up everything but his computer. He then sat down at the machine and typed a letter, a surprisingly short letter, to Lilah Morgan. He printed it out and looked it over before starting to disconnect the computer.

_Lilah —_

_By now, I'm sure you've discovered that I'm gone. I'd tell you that I'll miss you, but I'm not entirely sure that I'd be telling you the truth._

_The fact of the matter is that by associating with you I am only making my betrayal of Angel and my other friends worse than it already is — and I can't continue to do that. Nor is this . . . thing that we have healthy, not for either of us. So I will end it, and hope that you will make no effort to rekindle it._

_I'm leaving Los Angeles, very probably permanently. I do hope that you will grant me the courtesy of not trying to find me — and should you find me, of not approaching me._

_We are from different worlds, Lilah — and we need to stay out of each other's worlds for our own sakes, and the sakes of each other._

_Goodbye._

He signed it, put it in an envelope, and left it on the pillow she used when she was in his bed.

He then packed up his computer, took everything down to his vehicle . . . and drove away, not even looking back.

Dawn was waiting when he arrived at a little after three-thirty, sitting under a dying tree in the front yard of her foster family's front yard. It took no time at all to toss her two large bags of clothes, small bag of toiletries and sundries and her one box of books into the back seat of the Trailblazer — and they started out of the city well before sunrise.

Wesley took a slightly scenic route to Las Vegas, wanting to arrive there after the banks had opened. In Las Vegas, banks were extraordinarily accommodating, and he'd checked online, seen that there was a branch of a bank there that also had several branches in Detroit. They would also be used to dealing with electronic funds transfers from overseas, so he'd be able to open an account there quite easily, and explain that he'd be moving on to Detroit, and expect to bank out of a branch there as his primary bank.

Dawn was quiet during the ride, and he soon realized that she'd fallen asleep, clutching Buffy's stuffed pig in her lap. He drove more carefully after that, not wanting to jar the girl awake.

She woke not long after they entered Vegas, and he explained that he needed to acquire some funds. Since it was still early for banks, he bought them breakfast — well, Dawn had breakfast, he had lunch — then went to the bank he'd chosen. As he suspected, his desire to open a nine-point-five million dollar account made him virtual royalty, and the bank accommodated his every wish. (He left ten million in Lichtenstein, though he did file the proper tax forms on that money, so that the Internal Revenue service would leave him alone.) He left the bank with several thousand dollars in traveler's checks, a passbook, and the assurance that the Detroit branch of the bank would welcome him with open arms.

Dawn was wide awake when he finished, and Wesley felt only a little tired himself, so he agreed to going on, and decided to attempt to get their sleep schedules more in line with one another, and stay up as long as he could (he'd been getting up at about six or seven in the evening and staying up all night). When he started flagging at around three in the afternoon, Dawn volunteered to take the wheel and get them as far as Denver, Colorado.

"Do you have a license, Dawn?" Wesley asked.

"Yeah, Reggie let me use his car to take the test and paid for my driver's license for my birthday," Dawn said.

"Are you quite rested?" Wesley asked.

"I'm good — I don't seem to need so much sleep anymore," Dawn said.

"All right, I'll get off at the next rest stop — four miles or so — and we'll switch," Wesley said. "And . . . do you think you might like to push on a bit past Denver? I'll be fine to drive again after a few hours, and I thought we might press on, try to make the halfway point, and get our sleep schedules more in synchronization — and a bit more normalized."

"Sounds good to me," Dawn said. "Where an I going?"

"Ogallala, Nebraska is where we'll stop tonight, I think," Wesley said. "But I don't wish to sleep past say, seven-thirty. Wake me up then, and if nothing else, we can talk and keep each other awake."

"You got it — boss," Dawn said, and gave him a little grin.

They switched seats at the rest stop, and Wesley rapidly decided that Dawn was a much better driver than her sister had been reputed to be. He was able to relax and sleep quite well.

Dawn woke him at seven-thirty, and the laughter in her voice puzzled him — until he realized that he, like Dawn had while she slept, had a stuffed pig in his lap.

He set the pig on the back seat, and asked Dawn if she wanted him to drive. She assured him that she was fine, and he said, "All right. Dawn . . . there is something I should tell you. I think you've a right to know why I'm no longer with Angel Investigations."

"All right," she said — and let him talk.

He said more than he meant to — he hadn't intended to tell her about his relationship with Lilah, but it just . . . came out.

It took more than an hour, and when it was over, Dawn suggested that they stop for a bite to eat, gas, and a bathroom break. Once they'd eaten, refueled and used the bathrooms, Dawn said, "Wes, do you think you could do the last three hours to Ogallala? I have something that I have to tell you, too — and I'm probably going to get too upset to drive safely while I do."

"Yes, I can drive," Wesley said. "And safely."

Once the were on the freeway, Dawn asked, "Wes, what's the first memory you have of me?"

"Well, I first read about you not long before I came to Sunnydale, and I saw your picture then," Wesley replied. "All in Buffy's file from the council, of course. My first personal memory is of you coming into the library after school to see Buffy, and saying 'New watcher, wow, lame.' Why do you ask?"

Dawn blushed a little, mumbled, "Sorry, but . . . I was a kid."

"Forgiven," Wesley said. "Now . . . why do you ask?"

"Mostly because I remember it, too," Dawn said. She bit her lip, then said, "But I know it never happened. None of the times we met ever actually happened, Wes, not before last night. I remember them as well as you — but they never happened."

"This should be interesting," he said after a moment. "Please, continue."

Dawn told it all, being as honest as he had about the whole disaster with Connor and Angel Investigations. She explained that the Slayer power had been more than confused by her and Buffy being sisters — it had been fooled because Dawn had been magically created _from_ _Buffy_.

She got to Buffy's death, and how Buffy had died for _her,_ so that Dawn wouldn't have to die, and her voice grew very unsteady — but she didn't cry.

She came closer to crying when she tried to explain how alone and empty she'd felt for her first fifteen months in foster care, right up until she'd discovered that she had the Slayer power, in fact — but she did not cry.

When she finished, she sat staring out the windshield, clutching Mr. Gordo so tightly that had he been a flesh-and-blood pig, she'd have smothered him.

"You do know," Wesley said into that heavy silence, "that I won't think any less of you should you cry over what you're feeling, Dawn."

"I can't," she said in a dull, leaden voice. "I just . . . can't."

"All right," Wes said. "But I do need you to know that you are . . . allowed to, Dawn."

"I know," she assured him, still staring straight ahead.

Wes let it go. This was not the time to push.

They got a hotel in Ogallala, slept seven hours (in separate rooms), got up, and got back on the road, both feeling more awake and alert than they had the day before.

Fifteen hours later, they arrived in Detroit, and Wesley got them a suite in a decent hotel, taking it for a week.

The next day after breakfast in the hotel restaurant, he took Dawn's driver's license, some photo-booth pictures of her, and a list of all the classes she could remember taking in high school, asked her to look online for certain sorts of property for sale (he'd set up his computer, and hooked into the hotel's complimentary high-speed internet service), and went out.

A moment later, he stuck his head back in and said, "I almost forgot — what is your middle name, and is there a last name that you'd like to have?"

"My middle name is a tragedy best forgotten," Dawn said. "And for a last name . . . ." She thought for a moment, discarded many possibilities, recalled her favorite fictional vampire hunter and said, "How about Mears?"

"All right, Dawn Mears," Wesley said. "Shall I pick your middle name, then?"

"Sure, pick away," Dawn said, waving a hand — then looking up at him. "But no naming me for anyone we know. And no horrible old fashioned names of evil like Agatha, Ruth, Cecily, Hester or even Jane."

"All right, then," Wesley said. "I shall be back before supper — order what you like from room service for lunch, and do please stay in — I realize that there must be a temptation to explore, but Detroit is not the friendliest city in the world."

"No problem, I'll see what I can learn online," Dawn said, and Wesley waved goodbye again and left.

He came back at a little after four and handed Dawn a manila envelope that contained her "new life." She found herself impressed — the packet included a California driver's license with her new name — Dawn Elizabeth Mears — her right birthday, and one of the pictures Wes had had taken in a photo booth in the hotel lobby. She had a new birth certificate, with all the correct information on it, including what she thought were her original footprints. The packet even had a new social security card for her. There were death certificates for her fictitious parents, who had died in an auto accident, and guardianship papers for Wesley, who had apparently been her fictional father's very best friend in the world. She even had transcripts from two previous schools, detailing grades in classes that she'd honestly had.

"Wow, Wes, this is great!" Dawn said. "How did you do this?"

"It's all about finding the right people," Wesley said, shrugging, but looking pleased. "And let's be honest, Dawn — if illegal immigrants who barely speak English and have poor educations at best can find such people, then an educated man who speaks the language has no excuse for not being able to do so."

"Huh," Dawn said, looking thoughtful. "I never thought about it like that. So . . . all of this is legit?"

"Quite," Wesley said. "And once we've established an address, we'll transfer your driver's license to the state of Michigan, and it becomes virtually set in stone.

"Now, it's a bit early for supper — may I see what you found on the housing front?"

Dawn showed him the places she'd found, apologizing up front for the price tags.

"I'm sorry, there's just nothing like what you were talking about in any sort of neighborhood that doesn't also qualify as a war zone that costs less than a million dollars," Dawn said, sighing in frustration. "I suppose maybe we could rent."

"I don't think that will be necessary," Wesley said, scanning the links that Dawn had found for him. "I'm quite wealthy — I sold a rare book."

"You sold — what, like a first edition of the _bible?_" Dawn asked.

"No, no — a very rare book on very rare demons, written in the twelfth century, and copies later destroyed by the Inquisition," Wesley said. "It was one of four copies known to still exist."

"And you sold it?!" Dawn said. "Just to finance . . . this?"

"To finance a second chance, Dawn, not just for you, but for myself," Wesley said. He smiled at her, and added, "I did scan all the pages, so I have the information. And I don't share Giles's obsession with information being bound in leather."

"You . . . wow," Dawn said. She sat down on the bed and looked at him. "Look, I get that this is a second chance for you, too — but thank you. Really . . . thanks."

"You're quite welcome," Wesley replied. He clicked on the third link of those Dawn had saved — and said softly, "Oh, my. Dawn, I do believe you found our home. Brownstone, built in the late forties, refurbished and renovated in the nineties. . . Six stories, plenty of room for training facilities, plenty of room for us to _not_ get in each other's way — or on each other's nerves. Oh, my, the owner who did the renovations even added a balcony to each of the even-numbered floors.

"I think . . . we'll look tomorrow. But I'll call now, make an appointment."

Wes called the realtor, made an appointment for ten the next morning, then said to Dawn, "Shall we go out and see about seasonal clothing for you?"

Dawn agreed to that, and they spent less time than Wes expected (and far less money than he expected) getting Dawn properly outfitted for winter, which could come on quickly and at virtually any time, this far north. He watched her more carefully than she expected, and, while they wee in a nice department store, asked the clerk helping Dawn about something a bit less casual, more dressy, in both something like a slacks-and-blouse outfit and a dress.

Dawn protested, but only feebly, and soon had two dresses and three nice looking and slightly more practical outfits consisting of slacks and a blouse apiece — and those could even be mixed and matched, to a certain extent.

The ate supper in a decent chain restaurant, went back to the hotel, and went to their separate rooms off of the central suite. Wesley watched a movie, Dawn re-read one of the two dozen books she'd brought along, books she loved to much to ever throw or even give away.

The next morning they looked over the brownstone — and Wesley bought it without even dickering.

By presenting the realtor with a cashier's check for the full amount of two-point-two-five million dollars that morning before lunch, the brownstone was Wesley's before noon. The realtor took care of switching power, water and gas to Wesley's name, and gave him numbers for the cable and phone companies.

"I think I want the second floor for my personal rooms," Wesley said. "You may have whichever of the top three you like for yourself. The third, we will leave as a dance studio, add mats and other equipment, and make into a training area."

"I'll take the top floor," Dawn said. "It's got the biggest balcony, and I like being able to get to the roof."

"That's fine," Wesley said. "Let's take a look around, then go and look into some furniture, shall we?"

By four o'clock in the afternoon, thanks to Wesley being willing to pay "rapid delivery-and-set-up fees" that he felt fairly certain basically amounted to bribes, they had furniture. (The freight elevator and passenger elevator that serviced the building also helped, at least with placement.) Wes found himself surprised, as he had while shopping for clothes with Dawn, at her reserve in choosing furniture. She seemed to be looking for mostly unadorned furniture, no frills or fripperies, though she did ask Wes's opinion as to sturdiness.

By suppertime, the place had at least begun to feel like home.


	4. 3: Curiosity Survives Formal Education

Summers Pryce: Chapter 3

Curiosity Survives Formal Education

That largely ate the week, so far as school went. Wesley didn't see the sense in sending Dawn to school on a Thursday, not when there were other things they could usefully do. Instead, he took them both to the driver's license bureau and switched their licenses over to Michigan issue, solidifying Dawn's false ID even further.

Then he took Dawn to a kenpo karate school, explaining that he had chosen this art as a broad-based fighting art, one that would teach her much of what she needed to know to actually fight vampires and other monsters that could be fought physically.

"The idea is simple," Wesley said. "These people teach you the techniques you will use — and I teach you to use them as a Slayer must."

"Sounds good to me," Dawn admitted. "But . . . really, should I be in a group class? I mean — my control probably isn't the best, I don't want to hurt anyone."

Wesley looked at her sideways, shook his head a little in admiration, and said, "That was my thought, as well. If Sensei Stanton agrees to instruct you, I will pay for private lessons at home — but even with the promise of excellent pay for such, the Sensei wanted to meet you first, see if he thought he could teach you."

They arrived at Stanton's Kenpo and went in to find the instructor going over his books. He put aside the work when they came in, stood to greet them.

"Sensei Stanton," Wesley said as they went over to shake hands, "I'm Wesley Wyndham-Pryce — I called you this morning?"

"Yes, Mr. Wyndham-Pryce," Sensei Stanton said. "This is the young lady I'd be training, then?"

"Yes, this is my ward, Dawn Mears," Wesley said.

Dawn shook Sensei Stanton's hand, and looked him over. Five-eleven or so, lean but strong-looking, dark hair cropped short, blue eyes . . . and over thirty but under fifty . . . she thought. He had an utterly age-defying face, despite the few laugh lines and crow's feet. When he smiled, he looked a young thirty, at rest, his face looked fortyish, and looking stern, he could look fifty.

"Miss Mears, it's a pleasure," Sensei said. "Have you any martial arts experience?"

"My sister taught me some very basic stuff," Dawn said. "And I watched her practice enough to absorb some more — but probably not as much as I thought. Or would want to think, anyway."

"At least you acknowledge it," Stanton said. "So . . . any dance training? Or gymnastics?"

"Both, actually," Dawn said. "I took dance from five to fourteen, and gymnastics from eight to fourteen."

"Have you kept up the skills?" Stanton asked.

"Not perfectly, but some, yes," Dawn said.

"Hmm. Walk the balance beam over there for me?" Stanton indicated a four inch wide balance beam set only a foot or so above the mat near one wall.

Dawn moved to the beam, stepped up on it, and walked its twenty foot length as casually as strolling down a sidewalk, earning a raised eyebrow from Stanton.

"Excellent balance," he said. He strolled out to the middle of the mats, said, "Come here, please," and held out a hand to her.

Dawn walked over, and he took her hand — and tried to throw her, turning while holding her hand, levering his other hand up into her armpit and shoving up while turning his hips and pulling down on her wrist. Dawn stopped the throw by the simple expedient of placing her free elbow between them, in the middle of the Sensei's back, and levering back from him.

"What the — wait, how did you do that?" Stanton sounded intrigued, not angry, so she showed him. He grinned at her, said, "I'll be damned. No one's ever stopped that before, Miss Mears, you're quite —" He crouched suddenly, lashed out with one foot and knocked Dawn's feet out from under her. She went down, rolled backwards, came up into a crouch, facing him and ready to punch.

"I'd say you've kept up at least the basics of gymnastics quite well," Stanton said, grinning as she stood. "Excellent fall.

"All right — let's spar."

He had Dawn put on pads, and they stared sparring. He stopped everything she threw at him, and seemed to hit her fairly often — but he started smiling almost immediately, and his smile stayed on, got wider, as they fought around the gym.

After five minutes or so, he called a halt, and looked closely at Dawn. "You've got balance, strength and stamina," he said. "And a fighter's instincts. I can teach you, and I think I'll enjoy it.

"Mr. Wyndham-Pryce, you have yourself a martial arts instructor for Miss Mears."

"Excellent, thank you," Wes said.

"Yes, thank you very much," Dawn said. "And I think you'd better call me Dawn, sir — Miss Mears is hard to take seriously if you have to yell at me."

"All right, thank you, Dawn," Stanton said. "While I'm teaching, I'm 'sensei' — but before and after class, you can call me Daniel. Slip up and call me that in class, and _you_ get to do push-ups until _I_ get tired."

"I won't slip," Dawn promised, taking off the pads and handing them to him. "Will I need a gi?"

"Gi and white belt," Stanton said. "And sparring pads. You can get them at the martial arts supply place three blocks down — since it's just a white belt, they won't even argue. Tell them it's for my school, they'll know what style of gi to give you."

"Okay, thanks," Dawn said. "So . . . when do we start?"

"Today, three-fifteen, go until four fifteen," Stanton said. "That gives me plenty of time to get back here for my four-thirty class."

"Oh, are we close to home?" Dawn asked. "Sorry, I don't know the town at all, yet."

"We're two blocks from the brownstone," Wesley said, amused. "Come on, let's get your gi. Sensei, thank you — I'll give you a cashier's check for the first month when you get there today."

Dawn and Wesley left, got her a gi, belt and sparring pads, then found a place that sold mats for athletics, got enough to cover half of the floor of the dance studio on the brownstone's third floor. That afternoon, Dawn started martial arts lessons, and both she and Sensei Stanton were pleased with her first lesson.

"Dawn has excellent focus," Stanton told Wesley on his way out. "She's not distracted, not thinking about boys, or girls, or what's on TV — she's thinking about learning. I wish my other students were half that attentive.

"She's going to progress fast, Mr. Wyndham-Pryce, if she keeps her focus this tight."

"Wesley, please," Wes said. He handed Stanton the promised cashier's check, and Stanton put it in a pocket without even looking at it. "Or Wes. And I do think you'll discover that she does keep her focus tight. She's . . . been through a lot, and this is an outlet for her, one that she's aware that she needs."

"Then I hope I can keep giving her what she needs," Stanton said. "See you tomorrow, Wesley. And I'm Daniel, please."

Stanton left, and Wes went up to find Dawn practicing the one kata and several techniques that Stanton had taught her. He watched for a few minutes, then said, "You're impressing Daniel, Dawn. And you've already impressed me."

"Thanks," Dawn said, finishing her kata and bowing. "Wes . . . this feels so _good_. It's like . . . like the first book I read for myself. Or the first time I brought in first place at a dance recital. I feel . . . this is like coming home."

"Very good," Wesley said. "We'll give it the rest of this week and all of next, let you get the basics down — then I'll start coaching you, as well.

"In the meantime . . . Dawn, I'm thinking we can't eat out all the time, and I can't cook. I don't suppose you've the skill?"

"No, I can't cook at all," Dawn said. "So . . . flip you for who learns?"

"Please, I'm not that gullible," Wesley said. "No, we'll eat out tonight – but in the meantime, I think I shall give into to another temptation of being wealthy, and place an advertisement with an online employment agency for a housekeeper and cook. I can do laundry, but to be perfectly honest, I'd rather fight a Skra-vik demon, and they are covered in a slime whose smell would offend a skunk."

"Works for me," Dawn agreed. "I'll keep my floor neat myself, but a housekeeper to vacuum and dust up there _would_ be nice."

Wesley hired a housekeeper and cook the next day, three hours a day, three days a week, and six hours a day on Tuesdays and Fridays, with Sundays and Mondays off. Roberta 'Bobbi' Anthony was thirty, pleasant, personable, and had very good references, which Wesley did check. She cooked dinner Friday night, after ordering groceries from a service that accepted online orders and delivered, and her roast beef tasted wonderful, causing Dawn and Wesley both to compliment her repeatedly.

Friday afternoon, Wesley and Dawn got her registered for school at Henry Ford High School, some five blocks from the brownstone. She paid attention to her curriculum, matching it as closely as possible to her most recent one, and, at the encouragement of the guidance counselor she spoke to, went ahead and planned the next semester's curriculum as well, sticking mostly with "stock" classes, taking only one elective, a Creative Writing course.

The school itself had been built twenty years before, just before the school system began its sharp decline, and seemed very modern to Dawn, still. Three stories, with elevators that could only be accessed via keycards that only faculty and disabled students possessed, and multiple stairways at various points of the building. The classrooms themselves were large enough to not feel terribly crowded, and the library seemed huge to Dawn, prompting her to think that Giles would approve — and that thought made her wince and mentally shy away.

The weekend passed quietly, with Dawn and Wesley shopping for additional furniture, cookware and other necessities. Wes got Dawn her own laptop computer to use for school, and he didn't skimp, just got her the best one he could buy, reasoning that he wouldn't have to upgrade it anytime soon. The cable company had been in on Friday, set up their internet for them, so there was a cable modem waiting in her part of the brownstone.

They outfitted the first floor completely, setting up a living room, a library and a formal dining room, as well as rounding out the kitchen. Wes set up a workshop in the basement (which they found to be in surprisingly good repair, and very clean), and planned an armory They put shelves in the basement laundry room, getting the clutter of laundry supplies off of the floor, for which Bobbi Anthony thanked them. As an afterthought, Wes added a table to use for folding clothes, an ironing board and a stool, and a portable stereo that would play CDs or cassettes, thinking that since Bobbi did good work, he might as well make it as pleasant for her as possible.

Sunday, they went exploring, walking their neighborhood in an ever-widening spiral, learning the basics of where things lay in relation to one another.

Monday, Dawn started school — and, to her surprise, she made a friend.

Her classes seemed mostly okay, though she still couldn't make herself like Algebra II, but the teacher agreed to help her catch up during her study hall period for a while, and between that ad Wesley's claim of being good with math, Dawn thought she could catch up, get her feet under her again. Her American Literature class she liked, felt comfortable in — they weren't reading just old stuff, but also some more modern and popular books. They were in the middle of Stephen King's Salem's Lot right now, and Dawn grinned widely at that; she loved that book, and her new last name, Mears, came from that book's main character, Ben Mears. She was able to contribute intelligently to the class discussion from the first day thanks to that. Mister Clayton, the teacher, seemed impressed by her willingness to speak up in class, and by the things she said.

After a lunch that at least didn't actively offend the taste buds, Dawn went outside to the commons area at the front of the school, pulling on a jacket against the sharp breeze — the thermometer said it was fifty, but the wind made it feel more like forty — and strolling around a little to settle her lunch.

She sat down in the sun on a bench leaned back a little, closed her eyes and turned her face up to the sun. After a couple of minutes, a voice spoke to her, a wry, humorous voice that seemed friendly.

"Okay, so fess up," said a girl's voice. "Dawn Mears is your name, and you seem to know Salem's Lot inside and out — you're the daughter of Ben Mears the vampire hunter, aren't you?"

"Ssh," Dawn said. "Don't tell anybody — they'll want to know how I got out of the book."

She opened her eyes to see a slender girl sitting next to her on the bench. She had pale, wavy blond hair that hung about a third of the way down her back, a face that seemed to be all angles, but still very pretty. Deep brown eyes flashed behind little round-lens wire frame glasses, and she wore artfully tattered black jeans with a red t-shirt that said "Brains _and_ a pretty face — soon I will _rule the world!" _She wore a denim jacket open over the shirt, in concession to the chill.

Dawn laughed, said, "I like the shirt. Hi, I'm Dawn, but you knew that."

"Jazz Redman," the girl said — and waited.

Dawn got it, and she laughed out loud. Stuart Redman was one of the main characters in Stephen King's the Stand. "Greetings, fellow King-book-refugee!"

"Yay!" Jazz said, grinning. "You got it. Another literate person, and a Stephen King fan. Okay, we're friends. Done deal."

"Good enough for me," Dawn said. "So . . . Jazz?"

"Short for Jasmine," Jazz said, making a face. "Ugh. And my middle name is worse — I don't talk about it."

"Yeah, I can get behind that," Dawn said. She remembered that she no longer had to deal with her own middle name, and added, "I've had friends with hideous middle names. A guy whose middle name was LaVelle, for god's sake."

"I pity him," Jazz said. "Okay, you like King — how are you on Harry Potter?"

"Die-hard fan," Dawn said. "And Harry had better hook up with Ginny Weasley!

"Do you read the Dresden Files, Jazz?"

"All that are out," Jazz said, her grin widening. "Book five rocked."

They talked books until the bell rang, and Jazz invited Dawn to come over to her house after school as they went to their lockers.

"I can't," Dawn said. "Martial arts class, right after school.

"But . . . well, if you want to come over after I've had time to shower and change — about four-thirty, maybe?"

"Are you close?" Jazz asked. "I'm three blocks thattaway." She waved in the direction of the brownstone.

"I'm five block that way," Dawn said, grinning. "So . . . two blocks. Think the folks will let you?"

"Yeah, they say I don't have enough friends," Jazz said. She grinned, then, and said, "They never know what to say when I tell them that there aren't enough intelligent people in the world for me to have many friends."

"Cool, and I'll take that as a compliment," Dawn said. "It's the brownstone on the northeast corner of Eight and LaPointe."

"Which apartment?" Jazz asked.

"Oh, the whole building," Dawn said. "My guardian, he's rich, bought it all. I have the whole sixth floor to myself."

"That's cool!" Jazz said. "Now I'm jealous."

"It is nice," Dawn said. "So . . . see you at four-thirty?"

"Bet on it," Jazz said, and split off towards her own locker.

They saw each other again before that, as it turned out that they both had gym for the sixth and last class of the day.

Dawn participated eagerly, and had a good time playing basketball. With her height and the natural athleticism that came from the Slayer power, she found herself good at it.

After showering and dressing, she caught Jazz as they left the girls locker room, and they walked together, with Jazz dropping off at a more modern apartment building two blocks short of the brownstone.

Dawn told Wesley that she'd made a friend who would be coming over for a bit after Dawn's martial arts classes, which he accepted with equanimity, changed to her gi and went to the third floor gym.

Wes had been busy while she had been at school, she saw. The room now had a heavy bag, two kick bags, a speed bag and some gymnastics equipment at one end. When Sensei Stanton came in, he found Dawn on a regulation balance beam, doing a slow walkover, then a simple roll off of the beam.

"I've still got it," she said to herself, not realizing that her Sensei had come in.

"Yes, you certainly do," Sensei Stanton said, smiling as she jumped, spun and bowed. "I think that teaching you is such a pleasure because you've still got it — and you want more."

"Thank you, Sensei," Dawn said. "Where shall we start today?"

"I don't think you need to stretch after that," Stanton said, nodding at the balance beam. "So lets go over your basics, then move on to some new techniques."

An hour later, Dawn bowed to the sensei, then ran the stairs to her floor and her shower. She came down dressed in her school clothes again just a couple of minutes before four-thirty — and stopped to stare at Wesley.

"Well, what do you think?" he asked, turning his head a little.

He'd trimmed his beard heavily, taking it down to a small, short beard on his chin and a neatly trimmed mustache — Dawn thought the style was called a Van Dyke, though she couldn't recall where she'd picked up the information.

"I think I like it," she said, smiling. "It makes you look . . . intellectual. Distinguished. It works, Wes."

"Thank you," he said. "It's a bit more comfortable as well."

The doorbell rang, and Dawn ran to answer it, came back with Jazz in tow.

"Wes, this is my friend Jazz Redman, a fellow student at Henry Ford High, fellow fan of Stephen King, Harry Potter and Harry Dresden, and all around literate person," Dawn said. "Jazz, this is my guardian, Wesley Wyndham-Pryce, scarily well-read man, all-around competent teacher and generally nice guy."

"A reader, thank heaven," Wesley said, shaking Jazz's hand. "Please, call me Wes, or Wesley. If you call me 'Mr. Wyndham-Pryce,' I'm afraid I shall be forced to ask what Jazz might be a short form of."

"Oh, that I'll cop to, Wes," Jazz said. "I just won't _answer_ to it. It's short for Jasmine. No, it's the middle name that shall never, ever cross my lips."

"Fair enough," Wesley said. "I've some experience with those — my own middle name, while not so horrific in England, horrifies most American men, and I'm not terribly fond of it.

"Well ladies, keep yourselves amused for a bit — I have to step out, I'll be back in an hour and a half or so. Dawn, I'll be picking up dinner — Chinese, I think. Jazz, would you care to join us?"

"Thanks, but I told Mom I'd be home for dinner," Jazz said. "Fortunately, it's close, so she doesn't mind me walking."

"All right, another time, perhaps," Wesley said. "Enjoy yourselves, girls."

He left, and Dawn led Jazz upstairs, where they mostly talked about books and school until quarter to six, when Jazz had to leave.

"Thanks, Dawn," Jazz said at the door. "Nice to have someone to talk to who thinks reading is cool, and reading horror and fantasy is the bomb."

"Works both ways," Dawn said, giving Jazz a hug, which the smaller girl returned. "Hey, maybe you can stay over Friday or Saturday, we can rent a couple of movies and scare ourselves silly."

"That'd be cool," Jazz said. "Saturday night would probably be better, though — further from Devil's Night."

"Devil's Night?" Dawn said, looking confused. "Uh, Halloween?"

"No, Devil's Night — the night before Halloween," Jazz said. "It's a big night for vandalism . . . and arson. Or it used to be, here in Detroit, anyway. Not so bad nowadays, but Mom's been weird about it since four buildings in the neighborhood we used to live in back in nineteen ninety-four got burned down, and ours caught fire. I was seven, I don't really remember much but fire trucks and going to stay with Grandma Reece for a few days afterwards. But since then, Mom keeps a close eye on me during the couple-three days before Halloween."

"Oh, wow," Dawn said. "I should probably tell Wes about this, he'll want to be aware. Thanks, Jazz — I'll ask him about Saturday and then we'll see about your folks."

Wesley got home perhaps fifteen minutes after Jazz left, and he had a pair of wrapped packages with him, as well as the bags of Chinese food. Dawn waited until he'd put the packages (books, from the look of them) in his study, then told him about Devil's Night — but it turned out he already knew.

"Yes, I meant to mention it to you," Wesley said. "The city imposes a rather strict curfew on the two nights before Halloween and the night itself — people under eighteen can't be out after six PM unless accompanied by an adult."

"Six?! That's nuts!" Dawn said, reaching for her food.

"Devils Night has, in the past, resulted in millions of dollars worth of property damage," Wesley said. "As well as a serious loss of life, Dawn. I think a harsh curfew three nights a year can be excused under those circumstances."

"Well, okay," Dawn said. "Yeah, you're right. Sorry. Teenager reflexes kicked in."

"I think I can forgive that," Wes said mildly, "given that you're sixteen.

"I'm sure the school will have some event going on Halloween, and you've my permission in advance to go."

"Thanks, Wes," Dawn said. "I'll think about it. Maybe if Jazz goes, but . . . not like I have a lot of friends yet. Not that worried about hanging out, yet. Still . . . adjusting."

"Understandable." Wesley chewed and thought for a moment. "But don't . . . Dawn, I don't pretend to know what you're feeling, I'm not that foolish, but I haven't completely forgotten what sixteen was like for me. Admittedly, I didn't have many of the problems that you have, but . . . I had problems.

"I think I'm trying to say that you shouldn't let the problems rule you any more than you can prevent. Don't shy away from people. I'm not telling you to seek friends, but . . . well, if someone reaches out to you, it might be worth reaching back.

"Tell me . . . did Jazz make the first overtures today?"

"Yeah, she did," Dawn said, reaching for a packet of soy sauce. "And before you say it, yes, I'm glad she did, and glad I reached back. But . . . Wesley, she's enough, right now.

"No, wait — not true. You and Jazz together are enough right now. You're all the friends I need — and I think all I can handle, right now."

Wesley put down his container of rice, looked at Dawn with an expression of surprise, and said, in a quiet voice, "Thank you, Dawn. That may be the nicest thing that anyone has said to me in . . . a very long time."

"Not like you didn't earn it," Dawn said, blushing. "I mean — Wes, I look at all you've done for me in the last week, and I feel . . . kind of overwhelmed. Yeah, I know this is for both of us, not just for me — but I also know you've gone a lot farther than you had to with what you've done. You didn't have to give me a whole floor to myself, you didn't have to buy me a killer laptop, you didn't have to buy me more than the necessary clothes — but you did anyway. And you don't expect anything for it but that I do my best to learn the things I need to learn to do that job I want to do — things I could never learn without your help in the first place.

"All those things together . . . pretty much make you a friend."

"Then I'm doubly glad I did them," Wesley said. "So . . . what are your plans after dinner?"

"Homework," Dawn said. "Some reading and three questions for Chemistry, and a few Algebra problems — which reminds me . . . ."

"Bring your book and paper down here when you're ready, I'll see what I can do to help," Wesley said.

"Okay, thanks," Dawn said. "Then, after homework, I'll go over my martial arts stuff a time or two, then read 'til bedtime."

"Ah, that reminds me," Wesley said. "Books. Dawn, you could not have a pastime that pleases me more than reading — so I'm going to give you an allowance, for books, music, things of that nature. And before you protest, I can certainly afford it, and I wish to encourage your hard work and good habits with rewards — apparently, it's all the rage."

"Well, okay," Dawn said. "But really, Wes . . . don't go nuts, okay?"

"I shall endeavor not to," Wesley said. "However, I do know that you don't have many books, or any CDs. So . . . fifty dollars a week, payable on Fridays — here's last Friday's allowance. And you pay your own bus fare to the mall and back from that. There's a Barnes and Noble's there, in the mall area, not attached to the mall itself."

"Fifty — Wes, that's too much!"

"No, it really isn't," Wes said. "Dawn, if you buy two paperbacks and a CD a week, that's almost forty dollars. And how fast do you read?"

"Yeah, but — oh, who am I kidding? Thank you!" Dawn took the money that he'd laid on the counter between them, and said, "You realize, of course, that this means you'll have to buy me bookshelves for Christmas, right?"

"Well, that shoots down my plan to buy you a Ferrari, but all right," Wes said.

"Oh, please," Dawn said, rolling her eyes. "Such a guy car! I just want a cute little Beetle."

They finished their meal, Dawn did her homework — Wes really was able to help her grasp a couple of key concepts with the Algebra, and he willingly checked her work when she was done, told her that she needed to correct the second problem, showed her where she'd made the mistake, and let her correct it herself.

She then worked out for most of an hour, mixing up martial arts with remembered dance and acrobatics routines, and went to bed, where she read for an hour before falling asleep.

In the morning, she asked about Jazz staying overnight Saturday night, and Wesley had no problems with it. She went to school grinning and looking forward to the day.


	5. 4: Let the Wild Rumpus Start!

Summers Pryce: Chapter 4

Let the Wild Rumpus Start!

Tuesday evening, Wesley and Dawn were invited to Jazz's house for dinner, that her parents might meet both before agreeing to let Jazz stay on Saturday night. Wes agreed, and of course Dawn liked the idea. Wesley had Bobbi make a big tray of slightly sweet yeast rolls that they took as a dinner contribution, and they went to dinner. The door was answered by a skinny eleven or twelve year-old girl with painfully bright red hair, more orange than red, who ushered them in and went to fetch her parents, saying, "I'll be right back, please don't eat the furniture or run away — relax, only Jazz is a weirdo."

John and Crystal Redman seemed to be very nice people, and Jazz's sister, Iris, a nice kid, if as weird as suspenders on a snake. He managed an insurance office, and she worked in the main branch of the Detroit Water and Sewage department as an engineer.

"I watch dials and gauges and yell for my boss if there's a problem," Crystal said. "Not half so glamorous as you might think water and sewage could be, right?"

Wes and Dawn had gotten their stories straight and rehearsed them before going to dinner. Dawn's parents, Hank and Joyce Mears (keeping the first names of her parents the same, and Buffy's middle name, kept Dawn from messing up) had been a corporate lawyer and an art gallery owner, and they and her older sister, Anne, had died in a car accident sixteen months ago, leaving Dawn without relatives. Per his best friend Hank's last wishes as expressed in his will, Wesley, a dealer in antique books and newly wealthy due to some incredible finds, had taken Dawn in — but he'd been out of the country for some time, and unreachable, so she'd had to spend some time in foster care.

"I thought a fresh start for us both would be a good idea," Wesley said. "Dawn wanted to leave California, and I thought the climate here would be about as far as we could get from that of the Golden State without leaving the continental United States. And on seeing that the city government is making a real effort to reclaim the city, I thought I would give this place a try."

"I hope you don't regret it," John said. "Jazz says she told Dawn about Devil's Night — did she pass the information on to you?"

"Yes, she did, but the information came up when I was looking into the city as a possible destination, so I wasn't surprised," Wesley said. He smiled and added, "Though I'm glad Jazz thought to mention it — very good of you, Jazz."

"Always warn your friends," Jazz said. She looked exaggeratedly repentant then, and added, "I'm just sorry that I forgot to warn you about my insane little sister, and I hope you'll forgive me."

"She's okay," Dawn said, grinning. "Face it, Jazz, you'd be bored with a normal sister."

"Good point, I guess I'll keep her," Jazz said.

"Yeah, we'll see who gets 'kept,' Jazz," Iris said. "When I get filthy rich by designing the first working interstellar drive, I'll only sell it if the buyers promise to send you off planet with the first ship."

"Cool," Jazz said. "Thanks, Iris."

"Not a problem," Iris said.

Their parents looked tolerantly amused over this exchange.

Dawn and Wesley took their leave at about eight, explaining that Dawn had homework, and he had work to do. John and Crystal gave their approval for Jazz to stay the night Saturday then, and Jazz hugged them both.

"The high school is holding a dance-slash-social-slash-costume-party from seven to ten on Thursday, Wesley," Crystal said. "I know Jazz is planning to go — I'm going to pick her up and drop her off. Dawn, would you like to go with? I can give you a ride, so that you don't break the curfew."

"I . . . okay, if Wes doesn't mind," Dawn said. Wes nodded his permission, and she added, "I'm not sure what I'll do for a costume, but I'll think of something. Thanks."

"You could be Xena," Iris suggested. "You're built right, and the guys would drool."

"Not looking to be drooled over, thanks, though," Dawn said. "Not feeling like dating until I get settled in, you know?"

They went home, and Dawn started thinking about a costume. There would probably be nine or ten Hermione Grangers minimum, and she wanted to do something original anyway, so that was out. Nothing from any of Stephen King's books would be recognizable to non-King-fans, and she hated having to explain a costume. The irony of going as a vampire or other supernatural critter would be just too intense . . . and that left not much.

"Okay, maybe I'll be Xena," she muttered as she sat down at her computer and searched the internet for 'Halloween costumes' for inspiration. She didn't get far with that, but she did find her answer when she broadened the search to just 'costumes.'

"Sweet," she muttered. "And Jazz will recognize it, I'll bet money. Now, do I still have those pants . . . ?"

Wes knocked on her door just as she found the pants she'd been thinking of, and decided that they wouldn't do.

"Hey, Wes, come on in," Dawn said. "I don't suppose you've got a pair of rawhide pants I could borrow?"

"No, I'm afraid not," Wesley said. "However, I was coming up to tell you that I'll pay for anything you need for a costume — I think it worth it to see you socializing.

"Rawhide pants . . . were you thinking of an Indian of some sort?"

"No, a character from a fantasy novel," Dawn said. "Goldmoon, from the Dragonlance books."

"Let me see what I can find," Wes said, turning to go downstairs. "I'll use my computer — more familiar, and all that."

Wes found what he needed, got Dawn's sizes and specific requirements, and told her he'd get the things for her costume while she was at school the next day (and thus he bypassed her protests over how much he'd be spending — leather did not come cheap, even rawhide).

She approved his purchases after her karate class on Wednesday, and put the finishing touches on the look by adding a simple cloak and a staff. She thought about highlighting her hair, but decided that would be a bit much.

After supper Wednesday evening, Dawn asked Wes if he could drive her to Barnes and Noble's, since she couldn't go unescorted with the curfew in effect, and he agreed. She bought a couple of books, he bought a pile of books on wood working and medieval weapons, and they started home only a little before nine.

At a stop light not long before the turn onto LaPointe for the last mile of their journey home, Wesley glanced at the SUV that pulled up next to him in the left-hand lane, and snorted. Someone had gone all out for Halloween, done a very good job of making himself up as a Thoknara demon, a race that had a gift of producing flame from nothingness. Wes waved at the passenger, who nodded back, then turned and laughed while saying something to the vehicle's driver.

"Good costume," Dawn said, glancing over when Wesley waved. "Theatrical level makeup."

"Yes, it's a very good — dear lord!" Wes didn't look left again, just kept his eyes forward, though it took an effort. "Dawn, don't look again — but that isn't a costume. It's a Thoknara demon — no one would know to make a costume of one, so it's real."

"Crap," Dawn said. "Okay, so do we follow?"

"If it's possible to do so without raising suspicion, yes," Wesley said. "Thoknara can produce flame from nothingness, Dawn — and this is Devil's Night, a night famous for arson."

"Any weapons in here?" Dawn asked as the light changed, and Wesley concentrated on following the jeep with the demon in it without being noticed.

"A pair of European longswords in the compartment under the back seat," Wesley said. "A staff in the same compartment. And the tire iron, I suppose. Are you carrying anything?"

"Just a couple of stakes," Dawn said. "Sorry."

"No, it's not your fault," Wesley said. "All right — we'll follow as best we can, then work forward from there."

They managed to follow the demon to a nice house out in the wealthy suburb of Arden Park, sometimes called East Boston. They drove on past, noting the address, and parked some two blocks away, next to a small park and playground.

"What's the plan, boss?" Dawn asked.

"I'm going to get the swords out and lay them on the back floorboards," Wesley said. "You keep an eye on that place — you can see the drive from here. If there's a plan to use the Thoknara as an arsonist, I'm sure it won't be in this neighborhood."

"Got it, watching," Dawn said, and fixed her eyes on the appropriate driveway — luckily, it was right by a streetlight.

Wes got out the swords, put them on the floor of the backseat, and, on afterthought, took the small fire extinguisher out of its holder in the cargo compartment, took it up front, too.

"Hey, that's a good idea," Dawn said when Wesley set the extinguisher behind her seat. "I'll bet he hates a fire extinguisher."

"One can hope," Wes said.

They watched for half an hour before the bright red SUV they'd tailed came out of the drive and started away from them. They followed, and soon found themselves in the area of Detroit known as Delray, a large, sprawling area of mixed industrial and residential areas.

Dawn's first thought was that the place was just plain filthy — everything looked either gray or black, and horribly rundown. The only splashes of color looked to be the graffiti sprayed on virtually every building in nearly every block — and even that was filmed over with grime.

They saw the red SUV pull off into a brick-walled parking lot outside a grungy old factory-looking building, and Wes turned off the street a couple of blocks before they would pass that place, went partway up the block, and parked on the side of the street.

"All right, listen to me," Wesley said, hunting around in the console. "The Thoknara demon is very probably meant to start an untraceable fire, and it will be very dangerous — they take almost no time to call up a flame, and they can project it at will. If you get a chance to come at it from one side or behind, take it, and I will do the same.

"I saw no other demons — but that doesn't mean that they aren't there. I did count four silhouettes total, so there will be humans with him, very likely.

"Dawn . . . you know that you mustn't take a human life if it can be avoided. But if you must to save yourself, do so. These people . . . if they pull guns, retreat as best you can. Do you understand?"

"I do," Dawn said. "I won't kill the humans, not if there's any other way to save myself — or you."

"Thank you," Wesley said as he finally found what he'd been hunting for in the console — the strap from his old messenger bag that he'd used to carry the books he was using at the moment around. He managed to fit the strap to the fire extinguisher, and slung it around his neck. "This is not the time to experiment with splitting up, so stay close. Let me lead — I learned a lot about sneaking over the last couple of years."

"All right," Dawn said. "Ready when you are."

Wesley led them through a filthy alley to a spot almost opposite the brick wall around the factory where the SUV had parked, then up to the wall near the opening the vehicle had gone through. They heard voice from within, and stopped to listen.

"Is he here?" asked a grating, hissing voice that Dawn guessed (rightly) to belong to the demon.

"He's here," said a soft voice, lightly Mexican accented. "He's inside the wall somewhere. Past that, I can't say. He's . . . hard to fix on."

"Then you watch," the demon said. "You shoot him if he comes close, or gets out before I have the place properly aflame. If not . . . your boss gets his trouble dead without you having to fire a shot."

"That'd be nice," said a third voice, unaccented and deep. "I'm no coward, but . . . this guy scares me. No one should be able to do the things he does."

"Unless he can walk through a fire unhurt, you don't have much to worry about," the demon said. "I'm ready. I'll do one fast circuit, then a slower one for trouble spots."

Then Dawn and Wes heard a crackling sound, like a piece of dry wood catching fire, smelled a very petroleum-like smoke, and heard running footsteps.

"Hope this thing kills that freak," a third voice said. "Shit's unnatural. And hey, maybe well get lucky, and the thing and the freak will kill each other."

"What did this freak-guy do, anyway?" the Mexican-accented voice asked.

"Cost the boss some money," deep-voice said. "And . . . did it messy. Cleaned up to drug houses, beat the snot out of security and the dealer. Seven guys, all told, all with guns — and nobody hit him, despite wasting a shitload of ammunition. Guy broke both arms on every single one of our men. A week later, he did it again. Three days ago, he . . . interfered in another operation that the boss had going. Lucrative thing. And this guy, he put down nine hard men, two vampires and a sorcerer. In five minutes.

"Fucker can't be human."

"And he can't be fooling with the boss's business," the third voice said. "So . . . Devil's Night catches him."

"Smooth," the Mexican voice said. "Damn smooth. Hey, check it — the demon finished his first circuit already. Thing can move."

Dawn saw Wesley straighten at that, and knew he was thinking of the mysterious target of this little arson-murder. Whoever the guy was, Dawn approved of him on principal. Beating up drug dealers, closing down drug houses . . . Dawn couldn't find a bad side.

Unless they killed him.

Wesley moved right next to Dawn, whispered in her ear, "We go in on three. You get the one with the accent, he's a wizard. He'll be on the extreme left. No blades until the demon."

"Got it." Dawn moved nearer the entry, and watched as Wes held up a fisted hand, popped up one finger, a second — a third.

She went around the corner fast, and straight after the slender, handsome, Hispanic man on the extreme left of the group. Some instinct or perceived motion made him turn, and he raised a hand to point at her, reached for a charm that hung around his neck — and Dawn slapped his hand away, brought her closed fist in against the man's jaw. He spun and fell to the ground without a sound. She turned in time to see Wesley fighting with the biggest of the three, a large African American man, and the third crumpled on the ground to their right.

Wesley had his hands full, so Dawn intervened — she reached out, grabbed the black man's collar, and yanked him backwards, away from Wesley, giving Wes room to step sideways and hammer a punch into the side of the man's neck, stunning him.

"All right, let's — my god, look at that!" Wesley said as he straightened up from checking the man for weapons.

Dawn turned, saw a man walking out of the building, or at least the silhouette of a man — she couldn't see much more because he was walking through a raging fire _as casually as she walked though a light drizzle of rain!_

He saw them, started towards them, and passed completely out of the building, not running, just walking at a steady, even pace. If he noticed the fire, he gave no sign of it.

He got perhaps halfway to them before the Thoknara demon came around the corner of the building — and roared a challenge.

The man whipped around, cat quick, and stared at the demon. After a moment, he shrugged out of the trench coat that he had on, and started walking towards the demon, then running as the demon charged at him.

"Wes — what's going on?" Dawn asked.

"I wish I knew," Wesley said. "I think we should watch, though."

"Yeah, I want a good look at a guy who walks through a fire like that," Dawn agreed. "Maybe I'm over-curious, but hey — not something you see every day!"

The two figures met, slamming into each other with a sound like large wooden blocks being slammed together, and Dawn and Wes saw the demon recoil, even as the man-shape came to an easy halt, stood looking at the demon.

"You picked the wrong demon to fuck with, boy," the demon shouted. "I'll kill you if it's the last thing I ever do!"

"No."

The voice sounded calm, and certain, and almost musical. Dawn thought the owner of that voice had to be pretty young, even though she couldn't see him clearly yet.

"I am Rorx, Chief of the Conflagration Clan of Thoknara!" the demon shouted. "I do not fall to mortals!"

"Let's find out," the man said, and charged the demon again, going from dead still to full sprint in a split second.

The two slammed together again, and this time the man held onto the demon, tackled him and sat astride him, drew back his fist to punch.

"You seem to have fallen," the man said. "Does that make me immortal?"

His fist slammed down, and the Thoknara didn't move.

The man stood up easily, turned to face Wesley and Dawn — and shouted, "Look out!"

Dawn dived sideways, grabbed Wesley as she did, pulled him with her, and the first man that Wesley had knocked down missed both of them with his pistol shot.

"Mother FUCKER!" the criminal screamed — and turned his gun towards the now-charging man, started firing rapidly even as Dawn jumped to her feet and started towards the gunman.

"No, you fool!" Wesley shouted. "You'll hit th—"

A bullet must have hit the Thoknara demon — because it exploded, sent waves of fire and force out in every direction.

Dawn hit the wall around the factory back first — and passed out.

She couldn't have been out long, she decided. Wesley was checking her head with gentle hands, feeling for bumps and saying her name.

"I'm okay," Dawn said, and sat up. "What the hell was that?"

"Thoknara explode if hit with sufficient force," Wesley said. "No human could produce that much force, not even a Slayer, so I didn't worry about it." He shook his head. "But I didn't check that one for a gun, damn it all. If you'd been hurt —"

"No, really, it's okay," Dawn said, standing. "I forgot to check him, too.

"Now, where's the mystery guy?"

"I'm not sure," Wesley admitted. "I think he went flying past us — he was closer to the blast."

Dawn looked around the entrance in the wall, saw a crumpled form in the street, a pool of blood around it, and said, "There, Wes — he needs help!"

They went to the man, who lay face down in the street — and Dawn and Wes saw the impossible occur, grabbed each other to stop each other at the same moment.

Blood had started to run backwards, out of the street . . . and back into the man.

"My god," Wesley said softly. "What have we discovered . . . ?"

"You're the Watcher, you tell me," Dawn said, moving to the man's side as the last of the blood ran into him, and his visibly broken and twisted arm straightened and seemed to grow together.

In the distance, they heard sirens, and Wesley muttered, "Damn! Dawn, he's not human — obviously — nor is he evil, if his actions are any indicator. I don't think we should leave him for the police. Can you carry him to the jeep?"

"Should we move him?" Dawn asked.

"I think if he survived that explosion, we needn't worry," Wesley said.

"Yeah, okay," Dawn said. She bent, scooped the man up like a baby, and trotted for the alley they'd come through.

They got to the Trailblazer unmolested, and found it miraculously undisturbed. Wes got the back door open, had Dawn lay their charge across the backseat, and they drove off, moving at a sedate pace, and out of Delray in as straight a line as they could go.

It took about half an hour to get home, and it hadn't quite reached eleven o'clock when Dawn carried the man into the guest room in Wesley's second floor rooms, set him on the bed. Wes turned on the overhead light as she straightened, and Dawn got her first good look at the man — and let out a little sigh.

The man was almost painfully handsome, and not much older than Dawn, she thought — twenty at the outside. His face looked a little thin, but not at all in a bad way. He had high, sharply defined cheekbones, a jaw strong enough to accent the cheekbones, a slightly squared chin, and a mouth that looked as though it smiled a lot. His shirt had mostly burned off (but he had no signs of burns on him), and his arms, chest and shoulders looked muscular and toned. He had a narrow waist, and slender, strong legs under the remains of the gray cargo pants her wore. His hair, a deep, rich blond with highlights of red-gild here and there, hung well below his shoulders in a ponytail that had come partly unfastened.

"I think I'm in lust," Dawn muttered as Wesley gently moved her aside. He'd produced a soft-sided shoulder bag, like a person might carry on board a plane, and started laying out medical instruments.

"I can't say as I blame you," Wesley said. "There was a time when I'd have committed a crime to look like that. A felony, even."

"Are those . . . scars?" Dawn asked, looking at the marks on the man's chest, faint lines that seemed to cover him all over, faintly golden against his pale skin.

"No ridges or slick flesh," Wesley said, tracing a line on the man's arm. "I think they're tattoos of some sort. Patterns of some sort, but nothing I've seen before. Not even a shade of ink that I've seen before.

"Hand me the penlight from the bag, please, Dawn."

Dawn found the light, handed it to Wes, who checked the patient's pupil response, seemed satisfied.

"No sign of concussion," Wesley said. "Not surprising, I suppose, given what we saw. No visible injuries of any sort, in fact. Help me turn him over, please."

They got the young man turned over, and found that he had no injuries on his back, either — but dawn saw that he wore a necklace, and the pendant had fallen to his back. They hadn't noticed it before because it was a simple pale gold chain, almost exactly the color of the tattoos that covered his body. But dawn saw the rectangle of the charm, pointed it out to Wesley, and he unfastened the chain, took it off so that the man wouldn't choke, and looked at the simple charm. It was a plain rectangle, with letters engraved into it.

"Locke," Wesley read. "I wonder if that's his name?"

"I don't know," Dawn said, "but probably. Why else wear it — or spell it that way?"

"A valid point," Wesley said. "All right — Dawn, you have school tomorrow. I think you should get to bed."

"I — okay, yeah, you're right," Dawn said. She sighed, stood, and said, "You gonna sit up with him?"

"Yes, I want to be close," Wes said. "The chair over there is very comfortable."

"Okay," Dawn said. "Call if you need something, or come up, I guess.

"I'm going to get out books out of the Blazer — I need to read a little, or I won't sleep."

"Put mine in the living room here, please," Wesley said.

Just as Dawn got to the door, Wesley called her name.

"Yes?" she said.

"You did well tonight," Wesley said. "You did as I asked, and then you helped with that bruiser — and saved my life, perhaps, when the last one shot at us. Very well done — and thank you very much."

"Never a problem," Dawn said, smiling. "Thanks, Wes. G'night."

"Good night, Dawn."

She read for twenty minutes, fell asleep with the book open and the light still on.


	6. 5: May Luck Be Yours On Halloween

Summers Pryce: Chapter 5

May Luck Be Yours On Halloween

Their guest had yet to wake up when Dawn left for school. His breathing was fine, his pulse steady, his pupils contracted under light — but he didn't wake up.

Wesley had slept, and surprisingly well, it seemed. He seemed worried about their guest, but not overly so.

"Given how the man healed, I suspect he simply exhausted his reserves," Wesley said. "If he hasn't woken before bedtime tonight, I'll worry. Otherwise . . . I'll simply wonder, I suppose. And research, of course, see if I can find out not so much who he is, but perhaps what he is."

Dawn looked in on their guest before she left, and he seemed to be sleeping peacefully. She looked for a minute — he really was beautiful — then went to school.

School passed without event, though some of the students obviously felt rowdy due to Halloween. Jazz and Dawn spent a pleasant time after lunch inventing costumes for some of the louder and more obnoxious students.

After school, Dawn took her martial arts lessons — and got a surprise. Sensei Stanton tested her on the katas and techniques that she'd learned over the previous five classes, and over what he'd told her about the history of the form — then, at the end of the class, handed her two small strips of black cloth.

"What are these?" Dawn asked, looking at the little quarter-inch wide strips of black cotton fabric, which felt oddly slick on one side.

"Iron-on stripes," Sensei Stanton said, smiling. "They go one inch in from the end of your belt, and a quarter inch apart. You tie your belt with the stripes hanging on your right side.

"You passed your white belt, two stripes test a few minutes ago."

Dawn stared at the cloth in her hand, looked up at Sensei Stanton — and bowed deeply.

He bowed back, smiled and said, "Well, done, Dawn — and damned fast."

"Well done, indeed," Wesley said from the doorway. "Congratulations, Dawn."

She thanked Sensei Stanton again, hugged Wesley briefly, and went to see if Bobbi would iron the stripes onto her belt for her before she left that night, so she'd have them on the belt the next day.

"That girl's amazing," Sensei Stanton said to Wes as they walked to the front door together. "I've never seen anyone learn so fast — close to it, but only close.

"You're doing a good job with her, Wesley."

"I can take only the tiniest drop of credit," Wes said. "She's only been in my care a very short time. I put the credit firmly on her family — and on Dawn herself."

"Well, it's a shame that something had to happen to them before they wrote a book telling the rest of the world how to raise a good kid," Stanton said. "See you tomorrow, Wes."

Dawn showered and did her little homework before supper, thanked Bobbi for ironing on her stripes, and sat to eat. After dinner, she donned her costume, grabbed her staff — thoughtfully painted blue by Wes that day, as it was supposed to be blue crystal, not plain oak — and waited for Mrs. Redman. At five 'til seven, the Redman's car pulled up and honked, and Dawn told Wesley goodbye before running out to the car.

"Goldmoon!" Jazz said with a laugh as Dawn got into the back of the car. "Greetings, chieftain's daughter!"

"Greetings, X-man," Dawn said, grinning. "Nice look, Rogue!"

Jazz had gone with the black leather coverall look from the movies, though hers was vinyl, and had dyed much of her hair brown (with a spray-on, wash-off dye, she told Dawn later), leaving only a pair of pale blond streaks at the front, framing her face.

For a couple of hours, the school party was mostly fun — lame, at-school fun, but better than nothing. Not knowing anyone put her at a disadvantage, and Jazz, despite her outgoing nature, didn't have many friends. However, Dawn did meet and like Jazz's friend Polly Weaver, a vaguely pretty girl with a slightly dreamy demeanor. Polly had come to the party dressed as a Jedi knight, and considered herself "the world's biggest fan of Star Wars — if we don't count the prequels. My god, the pure, blind suckage! And with Ewan McGregor and Liam Neeson, that much suck should _not_ have been possible!"

Dawn laughed, and the three hung out some after that.

Dawn did dance with one of the multitude of boys who asked her — the one who was polite, intelligent, and not at all cocky or stupid about it. Vic Edmonds (she knew him from her American Literature class) approached her just as a slow song ended, dressed as a Dungeons-and-Dragons-looking ranger, and said, "Greetings, chieftain's daughter. As your one true love cannot be at this celebration, might a humble ranger request your company on the dance floor?"

"But of course, wild-runner," Dawn said, grinning and taking his offered hand. "Since you, unlike so many at this masquerade, speak as a gentleman, I will dance with you."

They danced to Santana's "Smooth," with Rob Thomas vocals, he thanked her, bowed elaborately over her hand, and returned her to her table.

"Damn, you can dance," Vic said. "You made me look like I know what I'm doing, and that can't be easy — as a dancer, I'm a pretty good bowman."

"You did fine," Dawn said, laughing. "Thanks, Vic."

"Anytime — damn, you can dance!" he left her with Jazz and Polly and wandered off toward the refreshment table.

"He's nice," Dawn said approvingly. "About time a nice guy showed up."

"Yeah, he's a good guy," Jazz said. "Not big on dating, though — half the guys think he must be gay, just because he's not slobbering all over every girl who smiles at him."

"I don't care if he is," Dawn said. "Not looking to marry him — just dance with him."

"There are dances you can do nowadays that people wouldn't let you do if you weren't married," Polly said. She smiled a little and added, "Sort of like a really good tango used to be . . . ."

Dawn opened her mouth to reply — and the lights went out.

Several people shouted, some girls screamed, then the emergency lights came on.

"Okay, nobody panic!" the principal called. "It's just a power failure, nothing serio—"

The emergency lights went out, each one simply going dark, no fade, no explanation — and Dawn's nerves started humming a warning.

More people screamed, and some teacher with a HUGE voice bellowed, "QUIET DOWN!"

A moment later, the principal said calmly, "Thank you, Coach.

"Ladies and gentlemen, please — panicking over a little darkness is silly. Just relax, stay calm, and we'll get the lights back on as soon as possible. Mr. Kirkland is going to the basement now to check the breakers."

"Uh, Mr. Franklin," came Mr. Kirkland's voice, "I can't get out. The door is stuck — both of them, actually."

People started mumbling, then rumbling, then shouting. Dawn leaned close to Jazz and Polly, said, firmly, "Stay right here — don't get up, and don't panic."

She got up and started towards the doors, ignoring both girls' questions about what she was going to do. She found the doors by following the sound of people beating on them, and said in a voice as little like her natural voice as she could manage, "Move — I'll open them."

Dawn felt people pass her on both sides, and checked the doors to be sure that no one was in front of them. She then located the latch area by feel . . . and hit it as hard as she could with the flat of her hand.

The door flew open, bounced off of something standing outside it, producing a startled "Oof!" Dawn stepped out of the door, heard a familiar snarl, and knew that she had a vampire problem.

Without thinking, without knowing exactly what might be in front of her, she kicked out, a front snap kick that connected with something's stomach, knocked it back.

"Drake!" the vampire she'd just kicked yelled. "We got problems! They broke the door, and one's fighting back!"

"Well kill it," said a very mellow, pleasant voice. "Good grief, Charles, do I have to think of everything?"

"Crap," Dawn muttered. She took her staff in both hands, not just one, and broke it across her own knee, felt the broken ends, found them satisfactorily sharp, and said (again altering her voice), "Yes, Charles — kill me, if you can."

She felt the vampire coming somehow, knew he'd moved to her left, started towards her at almost a charge. Dawn stabbed out with her broken staff, felt it bite, heard "Oh, fuck!" — followed by the sound of a vampire dusting.

People behind her started becoming restless, and something else — no, several somethings — began moving towards her. Dawn backed up, pulled the door shut, said in her false voice, "Teachers! There are men out there — armed, I think. Someone call the police!"

"Already tried," said the principal. "My cell phone's dead. I just charged it — and the battery's dead as hell."

"Mine too," said a woman's voice.

"Everyone check your cell phones!" the principal said. "Anyone with a working cell phone say your name — the rest of you be quiet."

There followed a great many sounds of cell phones being opened, muttered curses . . . and silence.

"Hello the dance!" called that mellow voice from outside. "Are you listening?"

"Who are you?" the principal called back. "What do you want?"

"I am the man who has you and your students trapped in a locked gymnasium," the voice said. "You may call me Drake. And you are . . . ?"

"John Franklin," the principal called back. "I'm the principal here. What do you want, Mr. Drake?"

"No mister, just . . . Drake," the presumed vampire answered. "Though I _do_ thank you for the courtesy.

"Principal Franklin, my needs are simple . . . I require from you four of your students, all female, two dressed as Jedi knights, one as Hermione Granger — a blond, that one, she might have done better to dress as Hannah Abbot — and one as a member of the X-men.

"Give me those four girls, and we will trouble you no more."

"Like hell!" Principal Franklin said. "You're not taking any of my students!"

"I see," Drake said, sounding unperturbed. "Well . . . all right, we'll let you think about it for a few minutes. Then I'll ask again — and if you refuse again, then I will kill every single child in that room save those four, and leave all of you adults alive.

"Think on that for . . . oh, let's call it ten minutes."

Silence fell, thick as old molasses. Dawn, moving as carefully as she could, went back to her table. She needed to find out what the hell Jazz and Polly knew, and fast.

She found the table by bumping into it, heard Jazz hiss, "Who's that?!"

"It's me," Dawn said quietly. "I'm back.

"Jazz, Polly — what's going on? Why does Drake want you two?"

"Damned if I know," Jazz said. "Dawn . . . scared, here."

"It'll be okay," Dawn said. "Really, it will — but I need to know what's up, Jazz, pretty much now."

"I swear, Dawn, I don't —" Jazz started.

"It's my fault," Polly said, sounding like she might start crying. "It's my fault, oh, god, it's all my fault."

"Tell me, Polly," Dawn said. "And don't think I won't believe you — I will. Trust me!"

"I . . . I can do things, sometimes," Polly said. "Magic things. They didn't always used to work, but . . . now they do. Always."

"Polly, are you saying the Wicca stuff works?!" Jazz asked. "That the luck spell we did last month —"

"It worked, Jazz," Polly said. "It did — look, Emily and Sandy, they both started dating the guys they really like, right? That's what they wanted, the luck they needed. I wanted the power to work consistently, and now it does. And you . . . you said you wanted a friend who would be able to talk about all the stuff you love with you, and here's Dawn."

"Holy shit," Jazz said. "Polly . . . what's that got to do with this Drake guy?"

"I don't know," Polly said. "I swear, Jazz, I don't."

"I can guess," Dawn said. "If you can do real magic, you're valuable. And maybe since you all four did the working together, he can't tell which one of you did it. So . . . he comes for all of you.

"Okay, I've got to know — Polly, can you do a . . . a detect monster spell, tell me how many there are?"

"I . . . maybe," Polly said slowly. "I think . . . okay, yes, I remember one, it should work."

"Do it, give me numbers," Dawn said. "Jazz . . . I need you to try to find the other two girls, get you all in one place. Can you do it?"

"I think maybe so," Jazz said. "But . . . what are you gonna do?"

"What I was made to do," Dawn said. "I'm gonna slay some vampires."

Dawn couldn't see Jazz at all — but she could feel her friend's stare, despite that.

"I'm gonna want an explanation for all of this on Saturday," Jazz said. "Sooner, if you can manage it, Dawn."

"Trust me, you'll get it," Dawn said. "This whole secret identity thing blows chunks."

Jazz moved away, came back three or so minutes later with the other two girls, but didn't make introductions, remembering Dawn's comment about the secret identity.

"Okay," Polly said, a moment after the others sat down. "I think there are six. I can't swear it — but I think so."

"They'll be able to see me, probably," Dawn said, disguising her voice again, striving to sound like Lucy Lawless. "But they certainly won't be expecting me.

"All right . . . listen, you girls stay together, but you come with me. Polly, your hand."

Polly took Dawn's hand, then Jazz's in her other, then the other two girls joined the human chain.

"You have to be quiet," Dawn said. "I'm going to try to get you someplace sort-of-safe, but you can't talk or scream. Be quiet."

Dawn led them along the wall, which turned out to be fairly easy, as people had started to huddle together in the middle of the room. She got them to the refreshment table — and its floor-length table cloth. She had them all go under it, from behind so as not to disturb the drape on the front.

"Stay here until I call for you, the cops come, or the lights come on," Dawn hissed. "I mean it — stay here, and stay quiet!"

Dawn moved back near the door, stopping when she bumped into a heavily muscled man, who said, "Be careful, there," allowing Dawn to recognize his voice as that of the coach who'd bellowed.

"Sorry," she said, still doing her Xena impersonation.

She backed off a step or two, then waited. Only a minute or so later (that only _felt_ like years), Drake spoke again.

"So, Principal Franklin," Drake called, his mellow voice faintly jolly. "Have you decided to give me the girls, yet?"

"Go to hell!" the Principal said.

"But I've only just left a few years back," Drake said, sounding mournful. "Why would I want to go back so soon?

"Last chance, sir. Give me four . . . or I and mine kill many."

"Try it!" the principal said.

"Very well," Drake said. "Dale, Brett . . . begin the lesson."

The door Dawn had broken opened, and two forms moved in, started to spread out — and Dawn moved, trusting her senses to guide her, and her training and instincts to let her do the job.

She moved to the closest, the pieces of her broken staff crossed in front of her, out towards the vampire. He heard her, or saw her, and snorted laughter as he turned to her. She held her ground as he advanced, and as he reached out to slap her stakes aside, she moved, smacking his hands aside and lunging for his chest with the stick in her right hand.

The vampire spun sideways, cracked Dawn across the jaw hard, and she almost went down. Not realizing that she still had her wits about her after that blow, the vampire came at her again, saying, "Hello, lunch!"

Dawn let him close, get his hands on her shoulders — then shoved the stakes forward, out and up from her crouched position. The vampire only had time to squeeze her shoulder painfully hard — and then he dusted.

A girl screamed from somewhere ahead of Dawn, near or in the crowd — and she moved that way, running as best she could in the pitch dark, praying that she wouldn't fall. She got almost to the crowd, and something came flying at her, something about human sized — but flying limp and floppy, and sideways. Still, she lowered her stakes, in case the person was only unconscious — and the body hit her hard, with all of the strength that the vampire had behind it, sent Dawn backwards on the hardwood floor, caused her to hit her head hard. She held on to her stakes, if only barely, and tried to get out from under the body of the girl.

The vampire grabbed Dawn by one arm, jerked her to her feet. She felt horribly dizzy and a little sick — but she did what needed doing, cracked her two sticks along side the vampire's head to disorient him, then drove them forward, following instincts that told her to stab downwards without understanding that she knew how short this vampire was from the angle that his arms had been at when he set her on her feet. She felt the impact, heard a scream — then drew her stakes out and drove them forward again, getting the heart this time, and dusting the vampire.

For a long moment, things stayed silent. Finally, Drake spoke.

"Dale?" the vampire with the mellow voice called. "Brett? Answer me!"

"They can't," Dawn said, barely remembering to alter her voice. "They're dust."

"Got lucky, did you?" Drake said, still mellow — but with an undercurrent of anger to his voice. "Well, let's see how you do against four of us, shall we, my dear?"

"Bring it on," Dawn said with a confidence she did not feel. "I'm up for it!"

"Awfully cocky, aren't you?" Drake asked. His voice came from the doorway now. "Why is that, I wonder?"

Dawn knew what to say then, knew how to drive this vampire bastard off without having to fight him. The dizzy and nausea she felt told her flatly that she'd lose — so she had to run a bluff, of sorts.

Despite the pain, nausea and dizziness she felt, the words came easily — she'd heard Giles say them more than once, and memorized them the second time, because she'd been so impressed that they were about Buffy, about _her sister_.

"Into every generation a girl is born, a chosen one," Dawn said, unconsciously picking up a British accent, and deepening her voice. "She alone will wield the strength and skill needed to fight the vampires, demons, and the forces of darkness, stopping the swell of their numbers and the spread of their evil.

"She is the Slayer!"

"Oh, dear," Drake said, his voice still mellow, but sounding strained, now. "Well . . . another time, then, Slayer. I'm not done . . . just re-strategizing.

"We will finish this another day."

Dawn felt the form move swiftly away from the open door, and staggered back towards the wall, felt her way along it until she found the refreshment table. She slumped to the floor there, and waited for the lights to come up.


	7. 6: Good Health and a Bad Memory

Summers Pryce: Chapter 6

Good Health and a Bad Memory

The lights did come up — inexplicably, with no one having done anything — some two minutes later. By then Dawn's nausea had dwindled away to almost nothing, though her head still hurt and she still felt dizzy.

Jazz came out from under the table as soon as the lights were up, saw Dawn sitting there looking pale and drawn, and went to her immediately.

"Do you need help, Dawn?" Jazz asked — and the screaming started.

"I'm fine," Dawn said, even as teachers tried to get students to calm down, stop screaming over the sight of the one student who had died. "Jazz . . . have I got blood on me? The vampire, the second one, he threw that girl he . . . he killed, and she hit me."

Jazz looked her over carefully as Polly and the other girls crawled out from under the table, Polly coming straight to Dawn and Jazz, the other two — Dawn couldn't remember their names right then, not to save her life — went to see what was going on.

"No blood," Jazz said. "Dawn, you look ill — are you sure you don't want a doctor?"

"No doctor," Dawn said. "I heal super fast. Just . . . talk to me, you guys? I think I maybe hit my head really hard, and I don't think sleeping or passing out is a good idea."

"This is all my fault," Polly said softly, tears thickening her voice. "I made this happen, I caused it, that girl—"

"Bullshit," Dawn said, and took Polly's hand. "No way, Polly — you listen to me!

"You did a simple spell, trying to get control of the magic you could sometimes do, and trying to help your friends have better lives while you were at it . . . and it worked! That some fucking vampire asshole with delusions of grandeur felt it or found out about it somehow, decided to grab you and use you for his own purposes — probably evil purposes, he _is_ a vampire — is not your fault!"

"But I —"

"Did you know this could happen?" Dawn asked.

"No, but —"

"Would you have done it if you had known?" Dawn demanded.

"No, of course not, b—"

"Then it's _not your fault!"_ Dawn said. "Polly, I know about blame, I know about fault — and you have no blame on you, because this is not your fault!"

"Okay," Polly said in a very small voice. "Okay, Dawn."

"You go, Mears," Jazz said. "That's telling her. Listen to the girl, Polly, she speaks wisely."

A teacher showed up then, one Dawn didn't know, a nice-looking guy in his fifties, and said, "Young lady, are you hurt?"

"I fell," Dawn said. "Hit my head. Hurts some, but I'm okay."

"All right," the teacher said. "Jazz, Polly, are you all right?"

"We're okay, Mr. Roberts," Jazz said. "What . . . what happens now?"

"The police are just arriving," Mr. Roberts said. "They'll probably not get statements from the students, not now, at least." He handed Jazz a cell phone, lit up and working now, and said, "Call your parents, each of you — I ask that you keep it brief, there are a lot of others without phones who will need to make calls. Tell them that there was an attack of some sort, and ask them to come get you immediately.

"And don't worry about school — we're cancelling classes tomorrow."

Jazz called her mother, Polly called her parents, and Dawn called Wesley.

"Wes, there's been an attack on the school," Dawn said. "It's over, now, and I'm not hurt except for a bump on the head, but the school wants parents to come get people right away."

"I'm on my way," Wesley said. "Dawn . . . did you have to act?"

"Yeah, it was that sort of thing," Dawn said. "We'll talk at home, okay?"

"Understood, I'll be there directly," Wesley said. "Be safe."

"I will, thanks," Dawn said.

She got up slowly, managed not to reel or stagger while she walked out, Jazz on one side of her, Polly on the other. The principal and a cop were standing at the exit to the gym, taking names to make sure that they could contact people later (and the principal to confirm the names of any students without ID). Outside, several cops were directing traffic and keeping worried parents in check.

"Listen," Dawn said, "with no school tomorrow, why don't you guys both come over to my house for lunch, if you can — we need to talk, I think."

"Mom may let me, since it'll be daylight," Jazz said. "I'll call in the morning, let you know — about ten for the call?"

"Sounds good," Dawn said. "Polly?"

"I can probably do that, yeah," she said. "I'll try calling around ten-thirty to let you know."

"Jazz! Dawn! Polly!"

The call came from Mrs. Redman, who looked almost indescribably relieved to see Jazz and her friends. Wesley came up behind Mrs. Redman even as they approached, and the police there let Jazz and Dawn go through. Jazz stopped to hug Polly (who would have to stay inside the police cordon until a parent arrived to pick her up), and Dawn squeezed her hand — then they went beyond the police lines and there followed hugs and tears and cries of relief from Mrs. Redman, and Wesley squeezed Dawn's arm gently, gave her a relieved smile.

"Dawn, are you all right?" Mrs. Redman asked, once she'd assured her self of Jazz's solidity and wellness.

"I'll be okay," Dawn said. "I fell and bumped my head — clumsy me, but it's no big."

"Thank god for that," Mrs. Redman said. "Jazz, let's get you home. Dawn . . . sorry for such a crummy welcome to the neighborhood."

"You and your family already welcomed us," Dawn said. "And that was _not_ crummy. This was just . . . a thing. Not your fault."

The Redmans left, and Dawn went to the jeep with Wesley, and home. Once they were inside, he said, "Let me see your head. Mmm. Sit down, I'm going to get my medical bag."

"Wes, I'm okay," Dawn said. "Really."

"I'd like to be sure," Wesley said. "And I was trained quite extensively in emergency medical care — as well or better than an EMT is, here. Sit. I'll be right back."

Wes looked into Dawn's eyes with a tsk of disapproval, asked her if she hurt anywhere besides her head, insisted on seeing her shoulder, still painful from the grab of the first vampire she'd killed inside the gymnasium. A large, dark bruise spread across Dawn's shoulder, but Wes decided that nothing there had been broken.

"All right," Wesley said. "You've a concussion, so we'll just keep you awake for a while. And the best way to do that is for you to tell me what happened, Dawn, in as much detail as you can recall."

Dawn told him, and Wesley actually took notes, nodding and even smiling occasionally. When she told him about Polly's confession of doing magic, and her assumption that followed, Wes looked up and said, "Yes, very good, that's very likely what happened — I forget how much exposure you had to magic through Willow and Tara."

He listened and wrote — until she told him of the bluff she'd run on this guy Drake. Then he looked up and stared at her with his mouth hanging open.

"You . . . advertised?" Wesley said, disbelieving. "You told him what you are? And right there where dozens, maybe hundreds of people could hear it?"

"Not like I had a choice, Wes," Dawn said. "I wasn't in shape to —"

"Dawn you shouldn't have done that," Wesley said. "That was a mistake, you could jeopardize everyth—"

"I didn't have a choice!" Dawn said. "Wesley, I was hurt — you say I'm concussed, so think about how bad it was right after I hit my head, would you? I couldn't have handled four more vampires. I'd have died! So I did the only thing I could think to do, and I upped the ante. I got lucky and this Drake asshole bought it — or I'd have been killed, and god knows what would have happened to everyone else who was there!"

Wesley sat very still for a long moment, then drew in a long, slow breath. "All right." He let the breath out in a sigh. "All right. You're right. I'm sorry, it's just . . . Watchers are trained to secrecy, and you . . . well, you did the right thing, but I really wish there'd been another way."

"Yeah, me too," Dawn said, relaxing and leaning back. "So . . . Drake left. Said we'd continue this later, and left. I got away from the middle of things, over by the wall, before the lights came back — and cell phones with them — and I'm pretty sure that no one but Jazz and Polly have a clue that it was me that stopped it."

"That's a relief," Wesley said. "Jazz and Polly . . . will you be explaining all to them?"

"I want to, yes," Dawn said. "This guy may come after them again, so they need to know — and they're both my friends, now, so I'd want to tell them anyway."

"I approve of Jazz completely," Wes said. "And I can't imagine a friend of hers being all bad, and while it was mistaken, Polly's concern about being at fault speaks well of her. If you need help explaining, I'll do so."

"Thanks, Wes," Dawn said. "And . . . sorry I had to blow the secret. But really, no other choice, not right then."

"I understand, and no apology needed," Wes said. "You did the right thing — I just wish this Drake creature wasn't aware, is all. It's going to make him harder to deal with."

"Yeah, probably," Dawn said. "Wes . . . if Drake has someone who can figure out that Polly and the others did a spell, and who can put out lights and kill cell phones like he did . . . why would he need Polly?"

"I suspect that Polly is potentially very powerful," Wesley said. "Dawn, she did a spell to grant herself and her friends luck, she said — but it went much deeper than that. She affected reality, perhaps in minor ways, but . . . well, that coin toss you did to decide between coming here and going to Philadelphia was almost certainly affected by that spell.

"In fact, it's very possible that you and I ran into each other that night only because of what Polly did."

"Whoa," Dawn said, looking bemused. "Wow.

"Still . . . well, Wes, that's one more reason to tell her the truth. She did us both a favor."

"Indeed," Wesley said. "I cannot argue.

"Now . . . are you hungry? Is your nausea gone? If so, a snack might be in order — you'll burn up calories healing, and should replace them."

"I could eat," Dawn admitted.

She and Wesley snacked on crackers and summer sausage, and Dawn had a big apple besides, and he checked her pupils again.

"Much better," Wesley said. "Your pupils are responding normally, and are evenly dilated, now. If you're tired, it should be safe to go to bed — though it wouldn't hurt to stay awake and read for a bit."

Dawn agreed to that, said goodnight and went to the stairs. She stopped off on the second floor, went to the guestroom there, and looked in on their mystery guest — and saw that he'd moved. Last night and this morning, even this evening before she'd left, he'd been flat on his back, arms at his sides.

Now he lay on his side, blankets pulled up under his chin, one foot sticking out from under the covers.

Dawn went closer, wanting to see if there was any sign that Wes had turned their guest, and made it to within three feet of the bed before the young man's eyes opened, and he sat up with a jerk.

Dawn jumped, and he stared at her. She calmed down, smiled at him, and said, "Hi. How do you feel?"

"I'm fine, thank you," he said. "Where am I?"

"You're safe," Dawn said. "Let me get my friend, he can probably explain better."

Dawn went to the stairs down, called, "Wes, our guest is awake," and went back to the guest room to find the young man sitting on the edge of the bed, dressed in a pair of sweatpants that had probably been Wesley's.

"Where is the bathroom, please?" the young man asked, his voice quiet and somehow melodious.

"Right over there," Dawn said, pointing at a door on the other side of the room. "Maybe you shouldn't get up yet . . . ."

"I'm fine," he said, standing easily. "And this is . . . very urgent."

She watched him walk to the bathroom and shut the door, and a moment later, Wesley came in.

"Where — ?"

"Bathroom," Dawn said, indicating the closed door. "I guess it was pretty urgent."

A couple of minutes later, the young man came out and stopped, looking at Dawn and Wesley intently.

"I don't think I know you, do I?" he asked.

"No, we've not met," Wesley said. "I'm Wesley, and this is Dawn. We brought you here after you were hurt."

"I was hurt?" he said, looking surprised. "Oh — thank you, then. I'm grateful, and you've obviously taken good care of me — I feel fine. I'm pleased to meet you My name is . . . I am . . . ." The young man went very white very suddenly, and looked up at Dawn and Wes with a fearful expression. He tried to sound calm when he spoke, but missed calm by a wide margin.

"I . . . I don't . . . know who I am."

"Oh, damn," Wesley said. "All right, sit down on the edge of the bed here. I'm no doctor, but I do know something about medical treatment."

The young man went to the bed, sat down and placed his hands on his knees. Dawn could see him trembling violently and trying to suppress it.

Wes pulled a chair over, sat next to the bed close enough to touch their guest, and reached to the nightstand to pick up the necklace and charm the young man had been wearing when they brought him here.

"Before we start an examination, you should take a look at this," Wesley said, handing it to the trembling young man. "You were wearing it when we found you."

"Locke," the young man said, tracing the letters. He frowned in concentration, then shook his head. "I don't . . . do you think that's me? Am I Locke?"

"I suspect so," Wesley said. "May we call you that, at least until we know more?"

"Yes, that would be fine," Locke said. He shook his head violently, as though trying to shake something loose. "Locke. Locke . . . I don't know . . . but it feels right, at least."

"That's something, then," Wesley said. "Tell me . . . do you remember the names I gave you a few minutes ago?"

"Yes, you're Wesley, and the lady is Dawn," Locke said. "She was here when I woke up."

"All right, then we can very probably rule out anterograde amnesia, then," Wesley said. "You seem able to make new memories. We'll know for sure later — after you've slept.

"Locke . . . would you mind trying a few experiments?"

"Anything that might help," Locke said in a low voice. "This . . . it's very frightening."

"It would be," Wes said gently. He looked in the nightstand drawer, found a pen and a small notebook. He handed them to Locke and said, "I want you to write something down for me. Ready?" Locke nodded, and Wesley said, " 'The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dogs.' "

Locke wrote for a minute, then handed it to Wes, who looked at it and nodded. "Very good. Now, again, please — in cursive, not printing."

Locke wrote more quickly, and passed it to Wesley, who looked at it and raised an eyebrow. "Very nice — and you seemed to make no effort at beautifying your writing. Yet your printing is extremely neat, and your handwriting almost calligraphic in appearance.

"This proves that you haven't lost things learned, only details about your own life.

"What is your mother's name? Your father's name? Any brothers or sisters?"

Wes fired off the questions rapidly, as though hoping to surprise Locke into answering — but the young man only trembled and said, very quietly, "I don't know. I don't . . . I don't remember."

"Do you remember anything before waking up here?" Wesley asked.

"No, sir," Locke said. "Nothing at all. Except how to talk and how to write, I guess."

"Wesley, or Wes, please, not sir," Wes said. He looked thoughtful, then asked casually, "What is it that you do, Locke?"

"I fight," Locke said, his voice more firm, though he seemed to be searching for exactly the right words. "I fight . . . for . . . for the _Light_."

"What do you fight?" Wes asked, still casual, as though just making conversation.

"The Dark," Locke answered, still firm. "The Dark, as personified by the demons. I fight them, as I was . . . was . . . ." He trailed off for a moment, then said softly, as though he didn't quite understand it himself, "I fight the Dark . . . as the Light commands."

Dawn and Wesley looked at each other for a moment, then back at Locke, Dawn with an amazed expression, Wesley more bemused.

"All right," Wesley said. "That's definitely a fight worth pursuing.

"Who are your allies in the fight, Locke?"

"The Light has many allies," Locke said, his voice somehow distant. "Yet no formal alliances. All who stand between the Dark and its victims are allies to the Light. Among these are the Guardians, though most are vanished, the Watchers, though many have lost the way, the Slayer, though the greatest of Slayers has fallen, the Strangers, who make safe the paths between, and even some demons, those who are only outsiders, not evil in nature.

"The Light has . . . Champions. Many, and some not even aware that they are such . . . Dawn are you well?"

Wesley looked over his shoulder to see Dawn standing behind him, tears streaming down her face, trembling all over. Even as he stood to go to her, she sobbed harshly — and left the room at a run. He heard her running up the stairs of the brownstone, and uttered a soft curse.

"Dammit," Wesley said. "I'm sorry, Locke, I need to speak to her, please, wait —"

"I hurt her," Locke said, sounding sorrowful. "I did not mean . . . what did I say that hurt her?"

" 'Though the greatest of Slayers has fallen,' I think," Wesley said. "Dawn's sister was Buffy Summers, a—"

"Oh, black damnation," Locke said — and he stood. "I am sorry, Wesley, I did not know. Yes, it was she whom I spoke of, though . . . Wesley, I don't know how I knew."

"I understand, Locke," Wesley said. "Now, if you will excuse me?"

"May I come?" Locke asked. "Wesley . . . sometimes it is easiest to speak of hurt to one outside the hurt. And it was me who said that which hurt her."

"I — all right," Wesley said. "Though if she will come to me, I may ask you to leave us alone."

"If it needs to be so, I will go," Locke said, and followed Wes to the elevator.

As they got out of the elevator on the sixth floor, Locke looked up and said, "She is on the roof, Wesley."

"How do you know?"

"I just . . . know."

Wesley thought about it for a moment, then decided to trust Locke, and went to the stairs up to the roof, Locke right behind him.

Dawn stood at the waist-high retaining wall of the roof, her arms crossed across her chest, staring out towards downtown Detroit and shivering.

"Dawn . . . ." Wes stopped, unsure what to say next.

"I'm all right," Dawn said, her voice even and emotionless.

"No, you aren't," Locke said. "I am sorry I hurt you. I did not know that you were _that_ Dawn, Dawn Summers."

"You . . . know me?" Dawn asked, still not turning to face the men.

"I know of you," Locke said, sounding rueful, "though I have no idea how I know.

"But I know that you feel guilty, and that I have made it worse. I'm sorry."

"I . . . she died so that I wouldn't have to," Dawn said, her voice almost robotic. "She died to save me and I'm not even real."

"Of course you're real!" Wesley said. "Dawn, you're as real as any of us."

"Am I?" Dawn asked. "What am I, Wesley? A girl, sure — I'm sixteen, but I'm not. I'm only two years old, Wes. I have all these memories, and none of them are _real!"_

"They are real," Locke said, stepping around Wesley and taking a single step towards Dawn. "You are real.

"Dawn, we are our memories, and the memories we leave in the minds of other people. Right now, you are much more real than I am."

"I'm a creation from some sort of mystical energies, I'm not even a person!" Dawn said, struggling to maintain her emotionless state and losing badly. "I'm just — I'm just — Buffy died to save me, and I'm not even real! 'The greatest of Slayers,' and she died for me!"

"You're quite real to me," Wesley said softly. "Dawn . . . you're my friend. You're real, and you are my friend."

"You are very real," Locke said. "If you weren't real, you couldn't feel guilty like this, Dawn.

"And there is an answer to that guilt, Dawn Summers, a way to banish it — you're already on the right path, I know this, I feel it — but you must keep walking that path, if you are to do the one thing that can make you feel free of the guilt you carry — though you carry it wrongly, I feel."

"Tell me," Dawn said, still not looking around.

"Become her equal," Locke said softly. "You are the Slayer, now. You have the best example any girl has ever had of what a Slayer can be, should be . . . so follow it!

"Become her equal, Dawn . . . and if you want her spirit to be as proud of you as you can make her be . . . then pass her!"

Dawn turned around slowly, stared at Locke for a long moment, then said, "I could never be that good."

"You can be," Wesley said. "You can be better, Dawn. How can you doubt it? Remember why you have the power in the first place; you were created from Buffy, essentially cloned from her, if by magic rather than science. You have memories of her work, of her methods, and you were even part of some of the things she did.

"You've already started training hard, advancing rapidly. Tonight, you saved hundreds of your fellow students from vampires, and you thought of a way to do so while injured and ill.

"You're the Slayer, Dawn. And the best way to honor your sister is to keep on with what you're doing, to get better at what you do . . . and to do the job right."

Dawn stood there staring at the two men for a long moment, then nodded slowly. "All right. I'll . . . I'll try."

She walked to them, her arms still crossed over her chest — and stopped next to Wesley. Without a word, she leaned against him slightly — and he hugged her, held her, guided her down the stairs . . . as she started to cry.


	8. 7: Pain Inevitable, Suffering Optional

Summers Pryce: Chapter 7

Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.

Locke simply continued down the stairs to the second floor as Wesley guided Dawn to her room, sat her on the edge of the bed, and sat with her, his arm around her shoulder, her leaning against him.

His own reserve, his own difficulty with expressing his emotions, led him to do exactly the right thing, even as he feared it the wrong thing; he held her, and he said nothing. Dawn cried bitterly for a while, her arm around Wesley's waist, her head on his shoulder. After maybe fifteen minutes, her weeping subsided to sniffles, and she slowly straightened, grabbed a tissue from the box on the nightstand, and blew her nose.

After a moment, she stood, said, "Be right back — stay, please?"

"I'll be right here," Wesley said.

Dawn went to the bathroom, came out looking better, her face freshly scrubbed, her eyes slightly red from crying.

"I'm gonna save you the grief of telling me not to be stupid, and not tell you that I'm sorry for that," Dawn said, sitting down next to Wesley and taking his hand.

"Thank you for that," Wesley said. "It's natural and it's normal, Dawn . . . and I think you needed to do it."

"Probably," Dawn said. She stared at his hand and hers for a minute, then said softly, "Wes . . . I love you. You're my friend. You take care of me. You . . . you're like a big brother more than a friend, I guess. And I am so glad you're here that I can't even begin to say it."

"The reverse is also true," Wesley said. He smiled, and tried to lighten the mood a little. "Well, if we exchange 'little sister' for 'big brother,' at any rate."

"Thank you," Dawn said. "And . . . before I lie down, I'm going to find Locke and I'm going to tell him thank you, because he's right. The only way to make sure that Buffy didn't die for nothing is to make myself be _something_ — as much as I can."

"I'm glad you think so," Wesley said. "Not that I expected any less, your devotion has already made itself evident — and made me very proud."

"Thank you," Dawn said. "You being proud of me, that makes me proud of myself.

"Wes, Monday, you're going to start coaching me, as well as me taking the karate lessons, right?"

"Yes, that's the plan," Wesley said.

"Okay, I need you to do something for me," Dawn said. She looked him in the eyes, and she said, "I need you to push me, Wesley. To make me learn as much as I can, as well as I can, as fast as I can.

"I need to get good, Wes, and I need to do it fast . . . because it hurts. It still hurts, and I'm pretty sure that Locke is right, that the best way to make it stop hurting, or at least stop hurting so _much,_ is to be the Slayer that Buffy was — and that's going to take a lot of work."

"Yes, it will take a lot of work," Wes agreed. He looked at her seriously for a moment, then added, "And I will push you, Dawn . . . if you will agree to letting me decide when I've pushed enough. If we push to hard, you'll break. So when I say we've done enough for the day, we've done enough — and no argument. All right?"

"Deal," Dawn said — and hugged him.

Wes hugged back tightly, and when they separated, he chuckled a little and said, "I think it's a good thing that we are doing this outside the purview of the Council. They don't approve of a Watcher hugging his Slayer."

"That's because they're idiots," Dawn said. "Caring . . . it makes us work harder. Doesn't it?"

"Yes, it does," Wesley said. He looked thoughtful, and said, "Locke . . . he said that the Watchers are allies to the Light, 'though many have lost the way.' I wonder if that's what he meant? That we've stopped caring, and become less for it?"

"Let's go ask him," Dawn suggested.

"An excellent idea," Wesley said.

They found Locke in the living room of Wesley's floor, looking over the bookshelves that lined most of one wall.

"Hi," Dawn said softly. Locke turned to face them, smiled tentatively, and walked to them. Dawn took his hand and said in a low, serious voice, "Thank you, Locke. You were right . . . and I'm going to do like you said. I'm going to be the best Slayer that I can be."

"You are very welcome," Locke said. "I'm glad I helped . . . and sorry that I upset you, in my ignorance of who you are."

"Don't be," Dawn said. She shook her head a little, and said, "I needed that — to cry. So it's a good thing that you didn't know."

"All right," Locke said. He looked a mixture of frightened and confused, and added, "I just wish I knew how I know all the things I know! I feel . . . there are no words for this. Frustrated doesn't come close, and it's the best choice."

"Sit down, let's talk for a few minutes," Wesley said. He and Dawn sat on the couch, Locke in a chair next to it. "Locke, you're going to need a place to stay — I'd like to offer you the guest room. And I'll loan you the money to outfit yourself — one pair of sweatpants is not enough. In return, you can help around the house, help with Dawn's training, and perhaps, if your skills are all I suspect that they will be, help us when we go to fight."

"All right," Locke said, and sagged in relief. "Thank you, Wesley. Very much."

"You're quite welcome," Wesley said. He continued immediately, kept his voice casual as he asked, "Locke are you a Champion of the Light?"

"I am," Locke said, his voice sure and confident. Then he looked startled and repeated it in a very different tone of voice. "I . . . I am?"

"I rather thought so," Wesley said. "Hmm, I wonder . . . I don't suppose you can cook?"

"A little," Locke admitted. "I do best with meat and an open flame. And I can make a mean breakfast."

"Definitely worth the price of room, board and clothing, then," Wesley said. "I don't suppose you know anything about heating and air conditioning?"

"No, I'm afraid not," Locke said.

"Well, you can't have everything, I suppose," Wesley sighed. Then he again went off on a tangent. "How did you come to be in the service of the Light, Locke?"

"I was dying," Locke said softly. "I was dying, so when the demons came, I fought them, because I had the least to lose. I had always wanted to be . . . to be good, to do right, so when the demons came, when they threatened people, I went out and I fought them. Because I had nothing to lose, I fought harder than I could have before I found out I was dying.

"I stopped them. I kept those people safe, I stopped the demons from killing anyone . . . anyone but me.

"They didn't kill me . . . but the fight took so much out of me that I had only days left, maybe a couple of weeks, not the months I'd had before. As a reward, the Light offered me a chance to fight on, to live . . . if I would fight in the service of the Light.

"I accepted."

Locke shuddered suddenly, and Dawn realized that tears had started to pour from his eyes — and he had broken out in goose bumps all over.

"I . . . I don't remember that," Locke said, gasping. "I know it — but I don't _remember_ it!"

"Ssh, it's okay," Dawn said, reaching over and taking his hand. "It's okay — it's bound to come back as a memory sooner or later. I saw how you healed after the demon blew up, so this is likely to heal eventually."

"Thank you," Locke said, holding on to her hand tightly. "Thank you, Dawn."

"I think that's enough probing for one night," Wesley said. "Locke, if you'd like, we can take you to a doctor tomorrow, see if he can help."

"I don't think so," Locke said, still holding onto Dawn's hand. "I think . . . I think it might be a bad idea, Wesley."

"All right then," Wes said. He stood, said, "Some friends of Dawn's are coming for lunch tomorrow, Locke, and we intend to tell them the truth about the supernatural things in our lives. May we tell them what we know about you?"

"Of course," Locke said. "I trust you, both of you. If you trust them, I will, too."

Dawn stood, still holding onto Locke's hand, and moved to hug him. He returned that, almost fiercely, still trembling with reaction to the things he knew without remembering them. She held on for a long moment, then let go when he released her.

"Thank you," Locke said. "Very much."

"Just returning a favor," Dawn said. She turned and gave Wesley a hug as well, then said her goodnights and went to bed, exhausted from her fighting and her emotional release.

She woke in the morning to the subtle smell of bacon, just discernible, wafting through the vents. She showered and dressed quickly, then went to the kitchen, found Locke standing at the stove, cooking bacon and setting it aside to drain. He had on a different pair of Wesley's sweatpants and a t-shirt that clung enough to show off his muscular chest, stomach and shoulders.

Wesley sat at the kitchen table, visibly inhaling the scent of cooking bacon and reading a newspaper.

"Morning, guys," Dawn said, sliding into a chair.

"Good morning," Locke said. "How do you like your eggs, Dawn?"

"Scrambled and cooked solid," Dawn said. "I see you don't have that wacky amnesia Wes mentioned last night — the kind from Memento."

"Anterograde amnesia," Wesley supplied. "No, Locke is capable of making new memories, thank goodness.

"Dawn, look at this; shades of Sunnydale High, I believe."

The newspaper article Wesley pointed at claimed that the attack on Henry Ford High had been committed by gang members, possibly stoned on crystal meth, and that they had killed one student, Amanda Flanders, then fled the school.

"Gee, maybe we should see if Snyder somehow survived the mayor and got a job at the Detroit News," Dawn said. "Oh, wait, no — never mind, if it was Snyder, it would have been PCP, not crystal meth."

"My thoughts exactly," Wesley said. "Dawn, when Polly and Jazz call, if they can come, make sure you find out their pizza preferences — I'm going to order out for lunch."

"Cool, will do," Dawn said. Locke slid a plate with a heap of scrambled eggs, a dozen strips of bacon and two English muffins in front of her, and she inhaled heavily and said, "Oh, thank you — non-cereal breakfast, you are a prince among men!"

"I could not agree more," Wesley said as Locke put his breakfast in front of him. "Locke, after breakfast, we'll go and get you properly outfitted. And then perhaps, if there's time before lunch, we'll see if any of the weapons that I have suit you."

"All right," Locke said. "I know how to fight, I know — I just don't know what style or how I know."

"It may be enjoyable to find out," Wesley said, looking thoughtful. "Or, I suppose, painful."

After they'd eaten, Locke insisted on doing the dishes, completely ignoring Dawn's volunteering to help, and Wesley's as well.

"You are feeding me and clothing me and giving me a place to live," Locke said. "Cooking and cleaning up after cooking will not begin to pay for that — so I am doing this."

"All right," Wesley said. "But should you ever not feel like it, let us know. One of us will handle it."

Wes and Locke went shopping right after breakfast, and Dawn sat and read while they were gone, waited for Jazz and Polly to call. Promptly at ten, the phone rang, and Jazz said that her mother had given her permission to come, so long as she was home for supper at six. She gave Dawn her pizza preferences, said she'd be there a little before noon, and hung up. Polly called at twenty after, confirming that she, too, would be there.

Wesley and Locke returned right after Polly's call, and Locke went upstairs to put away his things, change, and strip the tags off of the things he intended to wash before wearing them. Wesley called for pizza, requested delivery as close to noon as possible, then took Locke (and Dawn, who followed for curiosity's sake) down to the small room he'd designated an armory. So far, it held little, just five swords, two maces and an axe, as well as wooden practice weapons for each.

Locke hefted each weapon, then said, "I can use any of these, I feel fairly sure. But . . . well, longswords, a short sword, katanas . . . I don't suppose there's a good European saber around here somewhere?"

"I'm afraid not," Wesley said. "My collection is rather . . . small, I'm afraid."

"I don't suppose you've got a forge . . . ?" Locke asked — and Wesley suddenly looked very interested.

"You're a smith?" Wesley asked.

"I . . . think so," Locke said. "I can make swords, knives . . . I know I can."

"In that case, I will gladly invest in a forge and — well, I'll equip a full blacksmith's shop," Wesley said. "And I'll buy whatever steel you need for your purposes, so long as you make things for Dawn and I, as well.

"Of course, the issue of where to put it could be a problem — no yard here."

"What about the roof?" Dawn suggested. "Couldn't you put a sort of shed up there for a blacksmith's shop? In all the movies and shows I've seen, they don't put them in small, enclosed spaces, so you could put big doors on it so it could be opened up when Locke's working."

"By George, that would work, wouldn't it, Locke?" Wesley asked.

"Yes, the roof would work well," Locke said, smiling. "Thank you, Dawn."

"You're welcome," Dawn said. "But you know I'm gonna bug you to make me a cool and stylish Slayer-sword, right?"

"You design it, I will try to make it," Locke said, grinning.

Locke started his laundry, and the three talked idly about weapons until Jazz and Polly arrived together at a few minutes before noon — and just ahead of the pizza. There was barely time to introduce them to Locke (introduced as "a new ally in our ongoing struggle") before the pizza arrived.

"Papa Gepetto's!" Jazz enthused. "Best pizza in this hemisphere, sweet!"

They ate well, and Dawn found she couldn't fault Jazz's judgment — it tasted wonderful. Once the leftovers had been put away, Dawn said, "Well . . . time to tell you guys some truth.

"First . . . my name is Dawn Mears . . . now. I picked Mears for the character in Salem's Lot who hunted vampires. But I used to be Dawn Summers . . . and before that, I was something else entirely."

Dawn didn't skimp. She told them everything, with Wesley supplying a short, concise history of the Watchers and the Council, and Locke listening in fascination as she told how they'd run into him. (He had heard the tale from Wesley while they shopped, but a second perspective on something he very much wanted to remember fascinated him.)

Dawn's voice wavered and grew watery when she talked of Buffy sacrificing herself to save her sister — and Wesley found himself immensely pleased when Jazz and Polly, sitting on either side of Dawn, each grabbed a hand and held it, not letting go even after Dawn got past that painful memory.

". . . and then the Halloween party, and . . . you guys know the rest," Dawn finished at a little after two-thirty.

"Holy shit," Jazz said in an awed voice. "That's . . . holy shit in a sandwich wrapper!

"Okay, before we go into the seven million questions I've got, three things; first, I want to learn to fight. Second, I want to learn to fight _demons_. And third —" Jazz's hand flashed out, bopped Dawn on the back of the head lightly, "Dawn, if you ever pull that 'I'm not a person' shit where I can hear it again, I will personally get my ass thoroughly kicked by you, because I will do my level best to kick yours, and you'll have to kick my ass to stop me!"

Wesley laughed aloud, and Locke snorted laughter into a cupped hand, while Dawn sat staring at Jazz.

"You're a _person_ — I'm not into having balls of energy for my friends, though I'm open to the idea — but a ball of energy didn't save me and Polly and two of our friends from vampires last night," Jazz said, glaring at Dawn. "A person saved us — and that person is my _friend_. _You're_ my friend. And if I have to get you to kick my ass to remind you that you're a person, that's just fine — I'll just make you carry my books to class until the broken bones heal!"

"I wouldn't argue," Polly said, sounding amused and smug. "Only person who can successfully argue with Jazz is Iris, and that's because she fights dirty as hell.

"Besides, she's right. You're a person. Deal with it."

"I . . . yeah," Dawn said, blowing out a sigh. "Yeah, I must be a person — I'm pretty sure you can't smack a ball of energy on the back of the head."

"Don't say that around Iris," Jazz said. "She'll spend three hours explaining to you why you're wrong, and you won't understand a word of it. My baby sister is _the_ science geek."

"Okay," Dawn said. "Jazz, Polly . . . thank you."

"What are friends for?" Polly said. "You're _supposed_ to tell your friends when they're being stupid. You told me last night, right?"

"True," Dawn said. "Okay . . . so, Wes, you want to field the rest of Jazz's comments?"

"I think I'd best do that, yes," Wesley agreed. "Jazz, why do you want to learn to fight demons?"

"Huh?" Jazz said, looking at Wesley like he'd spouted an extra hand out of his forehead. "Uh, that would be because they're _demons,_ Wes."

"Could you be a bit more specific, please?" Wes asked, trying not to sound impatient.

"I don't — okay." Jazz took a deep breath, let it out, and spoke again. "I want to fight demons for the same reason I want my Mom to stop insisting on driving me everywhere. For the same reason I harass my family into recycling. For the same reason that I called the cops when I saw a guy dealing heroin over by the park. For the same reason that I'm never a bitch to anyone who isn't obnoxious to me first.

"I want to make the world a little better. Mom starts letting me walk, we save gas, we save some wear and tear on the atmosphere. We recycle, we save trees and energy and pollution. I call the cops when I see some scum-sucking son of a leprous _slug_ selling drugs thirty paces from a playground, I keep some kids from getting hooked on that shit, maybe. I'm not a bitch without cause, then I've reduced the negativity of the world just a little.

"I fight demons? I've reduced the negativity of the world a _lot!_

"They say that entropy has us outnumbered — well, I say that doesn't matter, if we can get it _surrounded!_

"So I want in. Even if I'm just Dawn's caddy, handing her a number three stake, or the longsword with the sharkskin grip, or another bottle of holy water . . . I want _in!"_

Wesley stared at Jazz for a moment — then laughed, a _good_ laugh, not _at_ her, but in delight at her attitude.

"Jazz, I honestly can't say which was funnier — the idea of surrounding entropy, or the image I had of you carrying a golf bag with sword hilts sticking out of it while Dawn staked a vampire on a golf course." Wesley shook his head in admiration. "All right — amusing and all, your arguments are persuasive. You can stay until almost six, you said? Perhaps you should watch Dawn's martial arts lessons, and see what you think. If you remain interested afterwards, I will speak to your parents about including you in the instruction I give Dawn — for purely logical reasons, of course. I think mentioning vampires to your parents might be a mistake.

"Polly . . . what about you?"

"Me?" Polly said, looking startled. "I'm in, of course I'm in! Where's the Justice League without Zatanna? What would the Avengers do without the Scarlet Witch? Where would the Justice Society be without Dr. Fate?

"You've got to have a magic user . . . I'm a magic user. Dawn saved my life, the lives of three of my friends. So . . . I'm _your_ magic user."

"All right," Wesley said, chuckling. "All right. Are you willing to take rudimentary self defense lessons, at least?"

"I want the full treatment," Polly said. "After all, a Jedi knight doesn't rely on just the force."

Wesley stared — and Dawn, Jazz and Locke all cracked up.

"All right," Wesley said. "We'll see about lessons — your parents must approve, and you must promise not to fight until I pass you for it, except in emergencies, of course."

Both girls agreed, and Locke said, "I will help teach you, if I can — and if Jazz will promise to keep making me laugh."

"I'll try," Jazz said. "I'll even promise to you know, work at it . . . if you'll promise to teach shirtless. And if both of you go for the manly shirtless look, I'll see if I can't get a professional joke writer."

Wesley and Locke both sputtered a little bit, and Jazz grinned.

"I still got it," she said, as Dawn and Polly both laughed at the expressions on the men's faces.


	9. 8: Self defense is Nature’s Eldest Law

Summers Pryce: Chapter 8

Self-defense is Nature's eldest law.

Jazz and Polly watched Dawn's lessons with Sensei Stanton (with his tolerant permission), and both loved the things they saw Dawn doing, didn't seem afraid of the discipline required. Wesley watched them watching, saw their very real interest and their excitement, and reached his decision.

Once Sensei Stanton had gone and Dawn had showered, Wes sat down with all three girls and, with Locke listening, said, "Polly, Jazz . . . what do you think?"

"I think that looks like it's a blast, and like it's good for you," Jazz said. "Can you really teach that sort of thing?"

"My style is a bit more free-form, and draws on many other styles," Wesley said. "Also, you will not have the satisfaction of belt progression — Watcher's Council martial arts doesn't measure progress that way. It will also be . . . less flashy. There are things I can teach Dawn that I cannot teach you, simply because you lack the Slayer power, the enhanced agility and strength that are the legacy of the Slayer.

"Yet if you want, I will teach you — if your parents agree. The timing would require that you sometimes go home after dark, this winter, but I will gladly drive you both."

"I want in," Jazz said. "Mom will probably like the idea, she's asked me about learning martial arts before. And Dad will go along, he's easy to get along with."

"My parents will love the idea of me doing something physical," Polly said. "I'm sure they'll agree, especially if Jazz's folks do."

That evening, after dinner, Dawn and Wes went to the Redmans' and Wes explained that, after the disaster at the school, Jazz had expressed an interest in joining Dawn in the martial arts lessons that Dawn had already started.

"Dawn will be taking two sorts of lessons, as she is getting lessons in kenpo karate already," Wesley said. "What I will be teaching her — and Jazz, with your permission — is less formal, a composite art that emphasizes doing whatever works over predetermined sets of strikes, as many martial arts do."

"Could Jazz join the kenpo as well, do you think?" Crystal Redman asked, looking interested.

"I don't really know," Wesley admitted. "I'm paying for private lessons for Dawn, and . . . well, it's a bit pricey. I didn't know about committing you to something like that, or, frankly, if Sensei Stanton would allow it. He auditioned Dawn before he'd agree to private lessons for her, decided that she had the natural athleticism he wanted."

"Well, I will certainly agree to your teaching her," Crystal said. "And perhaps tomorrow she and I could see Sensei Stanton, and see what he thinks about adding her to Dawn's lessons — if you don't mind, Wesley."

"I don't mind at all," Wesley said. "If he agrees, she's quite welcome."

Immediately after, they went to Polly's house, met her parents (her older brother was away at college in Normal, Illinois), and spoke to them about the possibility of her taking martial arts lessons. They agreed as quickly and readily as had the Redmans, both seeming thrilled that Polly had taken an interest in something physical. They, too, decided to speak to Sensei Stanton, and Wes suggested that they coordinate with the Redmans, and all go together.

Saturday afternoon, both families stopped by and asked Wes to call Sensei Stanton to confirm that he had no problems with the other girls joining Dawn. He called, assured Daniel Stanton that he liked the idea, and both girls were accepted.

"He said I'm really fast," Jazz said, grinning proudly. "And he told Polly that she bends in places and ways that most people just can't."

"It's the yoga," Polly said, grinning. "I'm flexible."

The two families stayed for a while, met Locke, being told that he was Wesley's nephew (a story they'd agreed on earlier, before he even met Bobbi the housekeeper) and seemed to approve of him. Locke's manners, his gently self-effacing attitude, and his neat, well dressed and clean shaven appearance seemed to go over well with both sets of parents.

Just before they left, the Redmans asked if they could move Jazz's sleepover to the weekend following.

"I'm sorry," Crystal said. "It's just that after the thing at the school, my nerves are singing, and I know I'd be unable to sleep with Jazz out of the house. Silly, I know, but I can't help it."

"No, it's understandable," Wesley assured her. "And next weekend will be fine, as well — I keep the weekends open, as Dawn works very hard during the week."

After the guests went home, Wesley and Locke got together at the computer and ordered everything he'd need (or even might need) to work effectively as a blacksmith, and Wesley checked out several contractors, made a list to call the next day about setting up a shed on the roof for Locke to use as his shop.

That evening, Locke sparred first Wesley and then Dawn. He beat Wesley easily, and Dawn with a bit more work. His fighting style seemed broad-based, containing punches, kicks, throws, locks, holds, hard and soft blocks and avoidance.

"I don't know," he replied when Wesley tried to sneak-attack question him on what the style was, and again when Wes sprung a question about where he'd learned it on him.

"Ah, well," Wesley said. "Someday, we'll figure it all out."

Later in the evening, Locke asked about getting some ID, and Wes agreed to do so the next day, then asked if there was anything particular that Locke wanted it for.

"I want a part-time job," Locke said. "Something to keep me busy in the day, while Dawn is gone and you attend to your business. And I'd like to earn a little money for . . . some things I won't let you give me money for."

"All right," Wesley said. "May I ask what things?"

"I, uh, seem to have a single bad habit," Locke admitted. "When Mr. Weaver went outside for a cigarette, and I went to keep him company, I . . . found myself craving one. He gave me one and it . . . yes. I smoke, I guess."

"Well, given how you heal, I suppose it's not that bad for you," Wesley admitted. "Though I will ask that you restrict it to outside. Perhaps in the blacksmith shop, in foul weather."

"Not a problem," Locke said. "Thank you."

Sunday, Wesley got Locke his ID in the name Locke Alexander Martin, Martin being Wesley's mother's maiden name. Monday morning, Locke came down to breakfast neatly dressed, and looking sharp.

"You look good," Dawn said. "All dressed up and clean-shaven — looking for a job today?"

"Indeed," Locke said. "I thought dressing well could only help."

"You know, I've been meaning to ask," Wesley said, "and Dawn's comment about your clean-shaven look reminded me . . . don't you grow facial hair? You never developed so much as a five o'clock shadow while you were unconscious."

"I don't," Locke said flatly. "I asked not to."

"You asked . . . I'm sorry?" Wesley said, looking confused.

Locke matched Wesley's confused look, and said, "I . . . don't know where that came from. But . . . I think I asked the Light to do that for me — to make it so I didn't grow a beard."

"Wow, you really must have hated shaving," Dawn said.

"No, I hate wearing a beard," Locke said, sounding a little odd and looking puzzled. "A subtle difference, but measurable.

"I . . . Wesley, your beard doesn't bother me, but the idea of growing one myself . . . it makes me _angry_. What the devil is that about?"

"I'm sure I don't know," Wesley said, frowning. "That's . . . odd."

"Oh, well," Locke said. "Someday, I'll remember, I suppose. I hope."

He and Dawn left at the same time and went in opposite directions. When she returned from school with Jazz and Polly in tow, they found Locke sitting on the front stoop smoking a cigarette.

"What, you found a job that pays cash under the table?" Dawn asked.

"No, Dawn," Locke said, smiling and moving out of their way (and downwind, for which all felt grateful). "I got a job as an intra-city messenger, and the company even provides bicycles. They have a hard time keeping people in the winter, I guess, but I don't mind the cold. Some people tip messengers, it seems, so I have some cash immediately. And the schedule is easy — nine to one, Monday through Friday. I like it."

"Cool, then," Dawn said. "Come on, girls, let's get changed."

They had a good time in Sensei Stanton's class, and he seemed happy with all of them. Any fears that Dawn would lose focus with friends present or that Jazz and Polly might not be so focused got quelled quickly, and he praised them all at the end of class.

Wesley's class felt a bit different from Sensei Stanton's. He did work them on techniques, but only for the first half an hour. After that, he switched to tactics, to the _ways_ to use the techniques, not the techniques themselves.

"Dawn, the night we ran into each other in Los Angeles, you were fighting two vampires and doing well," Wesley said. "However, when a third joined the fight, you missed a bet."

"And I got lucky that you were there," Dawn said. "Otherwise, I might have been the shortest active-time Slayer ever."

"Also a point," Wesley said. "Let's try recreating the situation — not combatively, just the layout, at least at first. Polly, get in front of Dawn, about two steps back from her and on her left. Good, thank you. Jazz, one step forward of Polly and on Dawn's right, please. Yes, right there.

"All right, Locke — take a spot directly behind Dawn and two large steps back, please. Good.

"All right, Dawn, you immediately staked the vampire in Jazz's position. Do you know why that was a mistake?"

"I left my back open," Dawn said. "I didn't see an alternative — I was trying to give myself an opening to go forward, away from the one behind me — where Locke is. Didn't work, but . . . I'm not sure what I should have done."

"All right, let's see if any of you others see it," Wes said. "Polly?"

"Um, no," Polly admitted. "No, wait — she should have gone after the one where I'm standing, so she could put the one where Jazz is between her and the one where Locke is?"

"That would have been better, Polly, yes," Wesley said. "And well done. But it is not optimal. Jazz?"

"She's strong," Jazz said. "Bowl us girl vamps over, go past us to slow down Locke?"

"Risky," Wesley said. "Remember, Jazz, vampires are much stronger than humans, though not as strong as the Slayer."

"Then I'm tapped," Jazz admitted.

"Locke?"

"I think in terms of pure power," Locke said. "I'd have kicked both of the two in front down, then worried about the one back here."

"For you, a viable solution," Wesley agreed. "However, no. All right, Dawn, trade places with me and watch."

Dawn did as Wesley asked, and he said, "All right — all of you close, slowly. Girls, you simply want to hit me, Locke, you want to grab me for a biting."

They all moved in, going in slow motion, and Wes simply took a long step backwards on a diagonal, putting him a little closer too Locke, but not dangerously so — and leaving the three "vampires" to run into each other.

"I'll be dipped in dog dung," Locke said. "That's just . . . elegant."

"And it'd leave us doing the vampire version of the Three Stooges," Jazz said. "Scary, Poe and Squirrelly, anyone?"

"The three who?" Locke said, looking confused.

"Oh, you lucky man, to have been spared that particular stupidity," Wesley said.

"Hey!" Jazz protested. "I like the Stooges!"

"And you seem so bright, otherwise," Wesley mused. "Well — Dawn, it isn't all about power. And that's a lesson you girls should take to heart, as well, as you lack the power that Dawn has, and Locke may have.

"So . . . we will have you three ladies work on being attacked by groups for a while, and see how well you learn to make the best decision."

Wesley ended up being quite pleased with their learning curve.

The week went fast, with all the girls throwing themselves into fighting lessons both from Sensei Stanton and Wesley, and both men finding themselves enjoying the teaching a great deal.

Tuesday afternoon, contractors started work on a sturdy, well-anchored shed on the roof for the planned blacksmith shop, and they finished before Dawn and the girls arrived from school on Thursday. Wesley and Locke set up the smithy they'd planned Friday when Locke got home from work, the equipment they'd ordered having been delivered already over the week.

Friday night, Locke started work on his own sword. Dawn watched a little, fascinated by the process (and secretly liking the view of Locke working shirtless in the heat of the forge, sweat pouring freely from him, making him look extremely sexy). She understood very little of what he did, but watched anyway, fascinated by the peculiar mixture of the brute force of raw heat and muscle, and the gentle, subtle touches that went into making a perfect sword — or at least, perfect for Locke.

He didn't finish, of course, not in a single evening, especially since he was careful to stop work about nine, so as not to keep anyone awake. He spent the rest of the evening working on a scabbard for the sword while sitting in the living room. Dawn sat and read, and Wesley worked alternately with several books and the computer.

"Blast," Wes said, sighing with irritation as he piled his books together to take upstairs with him at bedtime. "I've exhausted every resource at my disposal, and I've found nothing on the vampire who called himself Drake. In addition, the house where the Thoknara demon and the humans with him met their 'boss' turns out to belong to an older couple who were out of town for that week, attending a business conference in New York city that the husband needed to go to. They arrived home and reported a break in, though nothing was taken — they perpetrators only helped themselves to food and drink and left a mess, it seems."

"Which leaves us at a dead end," Dawn said with a sigh. "Crap."

"I can't disagree," Wesley said. "Well, I'm going to bed. Good night, all."

The next morning, Locke again started working on his sword, and Dawn again watched for a little while. She went inside while he was still folding and beating the various alloys of the blade. Jazz would be coming over after lunch, and Dawn wanted to straighten up her room a bit.

Jazz came over with an overnight bag and a stack of scary movies, saying, "I figure we can watch these and you can critique them for realism for me — you know, when we aren't shrieking and clinging to each other like we're Iris's age."

They put Jazz's things in Dawn's room and went up and watched Locke work for a while. He had reached the point where no one could doubt but that he was making a sword, a long and slender blade, double-edged, elegant and beautiful. He set the blade aside while they watched, started working on the cross guard and pommel, as well as the metal for the grip.

"I don't know what's nicer," Jazz said very softly to Dawn. "Seeing him make such cool things out of metal, or seeing _him_."

"Right there with you," Dawn said softly. "God, he's gorgeous."

"You made a pass?" Jazz asked as they went downstairs to get out of the wind.

"No, I . . . not real good at being forward, me." Dawn sighed. "Pretty much one kiss in my whole life, and that . . . disaster. He turned out to be a vampire."

"Ouch," Jazz said, wincing. "Well, on the plus side, you know Locke's no vampire."

"Yeah, but on the minus side . . . we've both got issues, right now," Dawn said. "Me with . . . still adjusting to a lot of things, still . . . it still hurts. And he's got that whole 'who am I' thing . . . I don't know. Doesn't feel right, not yet."

"Point," Jazz said, taking Dawn's hand as they sat on the couch in the living room area of her floor. "But . . . it won't hurt forever, Dawn. You're getting better. And the way he heals . . . well, he's bound to get over the amnesia sooner or later." She shook her head in amazement. "That was so _weird,_ Thursday!"

Dawn winced and nodded. Thursday afternoon, while Wes had been teaching them to fight, they'd sparred. While Dawn and Locke had been sparring, he'd walked a punch if hers and his nose had broken, sprayed blood, and he'd fallen to the ground.

He'd simply said a mild, "Ouch. Not your fault, Dawn, I walked into it."

Wesley had appeared at Locke's said, looked at his nose and said, "Oh, dear, it's broken, I'm afraid."

"That's nothing new," Locke said. "Half a second, here."

He'd reached up and gripped his own nose — and shoved the bones back into place, muttering only "Black damnation," as he did so.

Thirty seconds later, the bones had healed, and the blood that had streamed from his nose had mostly reversed itself, even running backwards out of the t-shirt he wore, leaving only a faint pink stain on the white cotton.

"Okay, where were we?" he'd asked then, getting to his feet.

And he'd attacked Dawn so fiercely that she'd fought back, which she hadn't wanted to do, at first. But once she had, she got right back into the rhythm of things.

"So . . . once you stop hurting so much, I think you should make a little pass, see if he wants to wait for his memory to come back, you know?" Jazz said. _"Carpe diem,_ and all that stuff."

"Maybe," Dawn said. "No rush."

"No rush," Jazz agreed. "Hey, have you ever read any Robert Heinlein?"

And they were back to normal, just that quick.

They had fun with the movies, alternately laughing and screaming, then lay in Dawn's bed talking until far too late before going to sleep to the sound of howling wind.

Jazz stayed until just before supper on Sunday, so she got to see Locke's finished sword in the afternoon.

"Wow . . . that's gorgeous!" Dawn said, looking at the slender, elegant saber. The steel looked as though it had depth, and it fooled the eye into thinking that you could see deeper into the blade than it was thick.

"Thank you," Locke said, looking proud. "I'm very happy with it."

"You've every right to be," Wesley said. "I like the heavier cross guards, and the way you've angled the ends up — not only is it more efficient for catching an opponent's blade, it makes the thing look . . . well, rather deadlier than usual."

"Okay, when I learn to use a sword, will you make me one?" Jazz asked.

"Of course," Locke said. "It will be a pleasure."

Crystal Chapman came to pick Jazz up at a quarter to six. Before they left, she said, "Dawn, do you think you might like to spend the night with Jazz next Saturday? And go with us up to Lansing on Saturday afternoon and evening? There's a science fiction and fantasy convention up there, I'm taking Jazz, Polly and Iris for the day, and John's going to see some friends while we geek-girls go to the con and geek out."

"Oh, that sounds cool," Dawn said. "Wes, may I?"

"You may," Wesley said. "Thank you, Crystal."

"No problem at all," Crystal said. "Think of it as repayment for teaching Jazz more about fighting. And I'm glad that she's found a friend."

Jazz hugged Dawn, thanked all three for having her over, and she and her mom left, Jazz promising to send Dawn info on the convention they were going to after she'd finished supper.

Dawn liked the guest list — Neil Gaiman would be there, as well as Jim Butcher, who wrote the Dresden Files books, and Joss Whedon, a TV and movie guy whose show Firefly she loved.

The week passed quietly, though Wesley admitted that he thought Dawn might be ready to patrol soon, making her feel good.

The convention on Saturday turned out to be a blast. Dawn got autographs, and listened to seminars, and even got to have a long and engrossing conversation with Jim Butcher, since no one was behind her in line to get his autograph, and he decided to stick at the table where he'd been autographing things for a while longer than scheduled.

When they left the convention, it had started to snow pretty hard, and Dawn simply stood with her face up for a long moment, loving the icy touch of snowflakes on her face, the look of them falling gently through the sky.

"And thus we witness the end of an era," Polly intoned, watching the delight with which Dawn simply absorbed the experience of snow. "Witness thou the death of the California Girl!"

Dawn laughed with the others, and let herself be dragged to the Redmans' waiting SUV.

On the way home, things went wrong.


	10. 9: When in Doubt, Tell the Truth

Summers Pryce: Chapter 9

When in Doubt, Tell the Truth.

John Redman listened tolerantly to the girls and his wife babble about their day at the science fiction and fantasy convention, or half-listened — he was concentrating on his driving. It hadn't gotten bad enough that he felt worried about getting home, but it the conditions did mandate caution, especially since far too many other drivers weren't showing any.

They'd gotten perhaps halfway home, traveling east on I-96, when he saw a young woman on the side of the road next to a van that seemed to have broken down — the hood was up — waving for passing drivers to stop.

"Okay, good Samaritan time," he said. "Stay in the truck, ladies, but I can't just leave her out there in this weather."

He pulled over, and the woman came to the side of the truck as he opened the door and stepped out.

Something prickled on the back of Dawn's neck — and she knew that John had just put them in the jaws of a trap.

"What seems to be the problem?" John asked the woman, even as Dawn said, "John, no! Get back in the —"

"I'm hungry!" the woman said — and her face changed, grew the prominent brow ridges and fangs of a vampire even as her eyes turned yellow.

Dawn had a stake in her hand and the door open even as the woman grabbed John and jerked him towards her — and five more figures materialized out of the snow.

"DADDY!" Iris screamed — and it became a battle, impossible to follow for all the snow and action.

Dawn made short work of the vampire woman who had hold of John, simply driving a side kick into her stomach, knocking her clear of John, then spinning and staking the woman thought the heart from the back. She dusted while John stared, uncomprehending and shocked.

"Dawn, help!" Jazz yelled from the far side of the truck.

"Get in the truck!" Dawn said to John as she turned to run to the other side of the vehicle.

Jazz and Polly were trying to fight off five vampires, one each of whom has Crystal and Iris held preparatory to biting them. The vampire holding Crystal stood closest to Dawn, so she grabbed him under the chin from behind, jerked him back into her stake, felt the hot wind as he dusted.

Dawn's blood sang as she did what she'd been trained to do, as the Slayer power had given her the power to do, and she moved closer, past a stunned Crystal, kicked the one harassing Polly in the head hard enough to stun him. Polly seized the moment, staked the vampire, hissed "Yes!" as he dusted — and moved with Dawn to help Jazz and Iris.

One of the vampires had Iris in a sort of headlock, keeping her between himself and Jazz, even as a second menaced Jazz more directly. The third one turned to face Dawn and Polly, taking a martial arts stance.

"Go — help Jazz," Dawn said. "I'll be there as soon as I dispatch the Chuck Norris wannabe, here."

Polly moved towards Jazz, and the vampire facing Dawn made a move to attack her. Dawn stepped in, feinted a front kick, caused the vamp to commit to blocking that — then turned the kick into a long step forward and lunge-punched the vampire in the face, sending him staggering back.

Dawn stepped in, and the vampire fired off a jump-spinning back kick, which she blocked, though the force of the blow still staggered her sideways into the truck.

She bounced off the truck and threw a jumping side kick into the vampire's chest, knocking him back and down.

"What the fuck are you?!" the vampire complained as it moved to get to its feet.

Dawn stomped on the hand the vampire had put on the ground to push himself up, and he fell on his face.

"I'm the Slayer, asshole," Dawn said — and staked him.

"Dawn, look out!" Polly yelled.

Dawn turned to see a vampire stumbling towards her, clutching a bloody wound in its chest and snarling. Either Jazz or Polly had missed the heart, though not by much.

Dawn staked the vampire almost casually — and Iris screamed.

Dawn moved, barely able to see for the driving snow, and as she got closer, saw that the vampire holding Iris had lifted her up and bitten her.

"LEAVE MY SISTER ALONE, YOU BASTARD!" Jazz screamed — and she stepped in, drove her booted foot into the vampire's knee hard enough to make something break — impressive as hell for a normal human — and, as it dropped Iris and roared its pain, Jazz stepped closer, kicked it in the crotch, and drove her stake up and into its heart as it doubled over, dusting it. Jazz immediately dropped to her knees in the snow, lifted the sobbing Iris into her arms and tried to get a look at the wound in the girl's neck.

Crystal brushed past Dawn, going to Jazz and Iris, and Dawn let her — she could see that Iris's blood wasn't fountaining or spurting, so the vampire had missed the jugular vein. She moved after Crystal, knelt next to the three Redman women even as John came around and knelt with them.

"Let me see," Dawn said. "I've had some experience with this."

Crystal shifted to let Dawn see, but didn't let go of either Iris or Jazz.

"Iris, honey, turn your head right," Dawn said. The girl did as Dawn asked, and the wound didn't look nearly as bad as it could have been. "Okay, it's painful, but not life threatening. John, is there a first aid kit in the truck?"

"I — yes. What . . . what in the hell is going on?" John looked confused and frightened as he continued. "What were those — those _things?"_

"Vampires, Dad," Jazz said. "Welcome to the real world — which is a lot scarier than any of us thought."

"Vampires?!" John said. "That's impossible!"

"John, get the first aid kit," Crystal said, almost snapped. "Polly, would you mind getting in front? I want to be with Iris."

"No problem, Crystal," Polly said.

They all got in the vehicle, and John handed a first aid kit to Dawn over the seat before facing front to drive. He looked very pale, and he'd started shaking — but he got them on the road and pointed towards Detroit and home.

Dawn bandaged Iris's neck after disinfecting the area, and did a good job — lots of practice on Buffy and the Scooby Gang had made her very good with basic first aid.

"Thank you, Dawn," Crystal said when the job was done. "Thank you — for everything."

"Never a problem," Dawn said. "It's what I do."

"You . . . fighting monsters is what you do?" Crystal said, her eyes widening.

"Kind of, yeah," Dawn said. "It's a long story . . . and to be really honest, it might be better if Wesley were to explain it. He'll do a better job."

Crystal rooted around in her coat pocket (without ever letting go of Iris, Dawn noted with approval) and came out with a cell phone, handed it to Dawn.

"Would you call him, please?" Crystal asked. "Ask him to meet us at the house? We should be there in forty-five minutes to an hour.

"I think I need to hear this."

"I know you do," Dawn said. She dialed the Brownstone, and Wes answered on the first ring. "Hi, Wes, it's Dawn. Um, we have a little problem, or had one."

"Is everyone all right?" Wesley asked immediately. "Where are you?"

"We're okay," Dawn said. "Iris got hurt, but it's not bad. We're about halfway home on the interstate.

"Wes, John pulled over to help a stranded motorist — only she wasn't a stranded motorist, she was bait for a vampire trap."

"Bloody hell!" Wes said. "You say no one was badly hurt?"

"Iris got bitten, but he missed the vein," Dawn said. "I got it disinfected and bandaged, but . . . Wes, Crystal and John need to know some things, and I thought it might be better if you told them."

"Yes, of course," Wesley said. "How long until you arrive in Detroit?"

"Forty-five minutes to an hour, and we're going straight to the Redmans' place," Dawn said. "Crystal would like you to meet us there."

"Yes, of course," Wesley said. "I'll be there when you arrive."

"Okay, Wes," Dawn said. She hesitated a moment, then said, "Wes . . . I have to tell you, Jazz and Polly, they kicked ass and took names."

"Excellent," Wesley said. "I'm very glad we started them on martial arts, then, and that they kept their heads. I'll see you soon, Dawn."

"Soon, Wes," Dawn said, and hung up. She handed the phone back to Crystal and said, "He'll meet us there."

"All right," Crystal said. "Dawn . . . thank you! You saved us all, I think, you and Polly and Jazz."

"Yeah, they were a big help," Dawn said, grinning at Jazz and reaching forward to squeeze Polly's shoulder. "Without them, someone would have gotten hurt a lot worse than Iris did."

"Yeah, well, thanks tons," Iris said, sniffling a little, speaking for the first time since they'd gotten in the vehicle. "And Jazz . . . you got a by on all little sister torture for the rest of the month, okay? You saved my ass back there."

"Hey, nobody bites my little sister," Jazz said, reaching across Dawn to take Iris's hand. "Not without getting staked, Iris. You're a brat sometimes — but you're my sister _all_ the time."

They rode in silence for the rest of the trip home. Wesley and Locke got out of Wes's Trailblazer as they pulled up, met them at the door into the building.

Soon, everyone had sat down — Iris wedged between her parents — and Wesley said, "I'm sorry that your family was attacked, John, Crystal . . . yet I must also confess to a bit of relief, simply because I dislike dishonesty, and as Jazz has expressed an interest in assisting Dawn in her calling . . . well, this way, you have the option of saying no while being fully informed."

"Jazz has what?!" John said sharply.

"Daddy . . . just listen, okay?" Jazz said. "Let Wes talk."

"All right," John said, not sounding at all happy.

Wesley did talk, for most of an hour. He explained about the reality of the supernatural, how much of it truly existed, though never exactly as it did in myth and legend, and how some ancient warlocks had called into being a power that could fight it, bound it to a girl . . . and how it passed from girl to girl down the centuries, how it had passed, in a sideways and unexpected manner, to Dawn.

"So that night at the high school, that was vampires, wasn't it?" Crystal asked.

"Good eye, Mom," Jazz said. "Dawn saved me and Polly that night, as well as Emily and Sandy — the vampire guy, Drake, wanted the four of us because we all worked with Polly to do a spell."

"A spell?" Crystal said, gaping. "Polly, you can really do . . . magic?"

"Yes, ma'am," Polly said. She looked thoughtful for a moment, then held her right hand out and said softly, _"Photus orbis."_

A ball of soothing golden light, about the size of a softball, appeared over Polly's palm, them moved up and started circling a couple of inches above her head at a distance of about six inches out from her wild brown hair.

"That could certainly be useful at some point," Wesley said approvingly. "Well done, Polly."

Polly grinned, nodded, and left the ball there to orbit.

"Is this vampire, this Drake, likely to try again?" Crystal asked.

"I suspect so, yes," Wesley said. "Dawn . . . she ran an excellent bluff, but Drake may be able to find out that the only 'official' Slayer is in jail in California. This will give Dawn an edge again, as he will decide that she was lucky on Halloween night, and underestimate her. But . . . I feel better knowing that she's learning combat arts both well and quickly, and that Locke and I are available to back her up."

"And me," Jazz said. Before either parent could protest, Jazz stood up and said, "Look, I know this is probably not something you're going to be real comfortable with me doing, but I can't stay away. Knowing that this stuff happens, how can I not try to stop it? How can I just let my friend go —"

"Friends," Polly interrupted. "I'm in, Jazz."

"How can I let my friends go out there and fight," Jazz said, smiling at Polly, "and not try to help them?

"Look, Dawn saved all of us today — no way Polly and I could have taken on six vamps. And what Wes taught me, that helped me save Iris. Sensei Stanton, too, but Wes — he's the one who drilled into Polly and I that we shouldn't go for the head or the gut on a vampire, that we should go for knees and kidneys and other cheap shots, take the pain we can get and distract them with it.

"So . . . how can I let my friends go out there and fight and not try to help them?

"Answer; I can't."

"Back to this spell for a minute," John said, clearly bothered by that, "then we'll discuss this . . . desire of yours, Jazz.

"Polly, this spell that you and Jazz and the other two did . . . what was it for?"

"It's called Desire's Luck," Polly said. "It affects probabilities in favor of the things that those casting it want. I was frustrated by the way magic didn't always work for me, so I asked that it should always work — and no failures since. Not like I'm getting cocky, that's a great way to end up with blue hair, orange eyes and a nose shaped like a potato, but . . . it works. I do the spell right, and it works."

"Jazz . . . what did you get out of this?" John asked.

"I . . . a perfect friend," Jazz said, blushing darkly. "Polly, I love you — but you hate Stephen King and Harry Dresden, you like a bunch of things I don't care about . . . and I wanted someone to sit and discuss the ins and outs of the Dark Tower series with, and to watch scary movies with, who'd laugh when I laugh and scream when I scream . . . ."

"No apologies, Jazz," Polly said. "We both have other friends. It's no big."

"And the other girls?" John asked. "What did they want?"

"They got the guys that they've been mooning over since seventh grade to notice them, date them," Polly said. "They're both happy, now."

"So this magic . . . it mind controlled the boys into loving Emily and Sandy?" John asked, sounding angry. "That's hardly harmless, Polly, it's —"

"It's not what happened at all, John," Wesley said. "John, the spell Polly cast is not capable of altering another person's mind — only their circumstances."

"So why did these boys fall in love with the girls?" John asked. "Why now? Why not four years ago?"

"John, when you met Crystal, what did you think of her?" Wesley asked. "Be honest, please?"

"I thought . . . well, my first thought was, 'what a babe,' really," John admitted. "After that . . . well, I pretty much ignored her for about a year, after listening to her and her friends rattle on about wizards and orcs and trolls for a few minutes. I thought she was a geek, in the bad way."

"What changed your mind?" Wes asked.

"Well, I noticed that she didn't talk that stuff all the time," John said. "Just when she was with the people she played Dungeons and Dragons with. Then . . . we were in a Chemistry class together, and I was out for a couple of weeks after an appendectomy, and she volunteered to tutor me and help me catch up when the professor asked. That's when I found out that she's brilliant, and organized, and can make people see things when they're having trouble grasping them. She got me caught up, and I got an A in the class."

"All right," Wesley said. "So what Polly did is the equivalent of making you notice the qualities that attracted you to Crystal — only if Crystal had done that spell, you'd have noticed them sooner. Perhaps you wouldn't have had your appendix go bad, and you'd have been present the day she gave an oral presentation that sparked your interest, or the day she successfully corrected the teacher, or something.

"Desire's Luck simply made those boys notice in Emily and Sandy the qualities that they can be attracted to, are attracted to. Had one boy or the other not been attracted to the girl who desired him at all, she would have very likely met someone else who possessed the qualities of the boy she desired, and who would desire her in a similar fashion.

"That spell affects probabilities, John, not thoughts or emotions."

"So . . .you and Dawn coming here?" John asked.

"I suspect that Polly's spell may have affected what time I went out the night that I ran into Dawn, and which direction I turned when I left my apartment," Wesley said. "And later, once Dawn and I had determined to leave LA, and she tossed a coin to determine whether to come here or go to Philadelphia, I suspect that the toss was affected, too.

"To be honest, I'm quite glad of it. We've found friends, and the city could obviously use a Slayer in residence."

"No joke on that," Jazz said. "So . . . Mom, Dad, do you see? I can't — Dawn's my friend, and this is . . . this is about stopping badness, just like recycling, and calling the cops on that drug dealer, and bugging Mom to let me walk more, and . . . it's the same thing, just bigger.

"Bigger and more important."

"Jazz, honey, I don't know —" Crystal started.

"Let her."

Iris stood up from between her parents and went to stand next to Jazz, repeated herself.

"Let her do it," Iris said. "Mom, Dad, Jazz saved my _life_ tonight! And Dawn saved all of us — both of you specifically, but all of us.

"All I've ever wanted is to be a scientist, and you guys have let me work on that, encouraged me to do it, helped me in a dozen little ways.

"Well, all Jazz ever wanted was to save the world — and I think you should let her work on it, encourage her to do it, help her all you can, just like you do me, because I really don't want her to be able to tell reporters that you guys spoiled me at her expense after I'm all famous for inventing a star-drive and stuff. It'd prejudice the Nobel committee against me."

Jazz laughed aloud and hugged Iris, who grinned and hugged back.

"I see," Crystal said. "John, let's talk for a few minutes? Would you all excuse us?"

Crystal and John went out of the apartment for a few minutes, and Wesley looked at Iris.

"Young lady," Wesley said, "thank you. Whether or not the argument succeeds . . . thank you for making it."

"Oh, it's already succeeded," Iris said. "Relax — Mom's already decided to let Jazz do it, and is just working Daddy around now.

"And you're pretty much perfectly welcome — I kind of owe you for teaching Jazz how to save my life, you know?"

"Yes, well, you should be aware that Jazz asked for the lessons," Wesley said.

"Not shocked," Iris said. "I wasn't kidding about her wanting to save the world. Something like this, something that dovetails with her fascination with those King and Dresden and Potter books? Yeah. Not shocked that she asked to be a part of it. Heck, I'd about pass out if she hadn't."

John and Crystal came back in some five minutes later, and stopped next to Jazz. Both hugged her, and Crystal said, "Jasmine . . . you be careful, honey. You do what Wesley and Dawn tell you, and you be careful, always and forever."

"What your mother said," John said. His voice was foggy, as though he'd been crying, but he hugged Jazz and said, "You don't fight until Wesley says you're ready, unless it's an emergency like tonight, and you always, always be careful."

Jazz hugged both her parents very tightly and said, "Thank you. Both of you. And I promise, I'll be careful. And no fighting except in emergencies, not until Wes gives me a passing grade."

"Okay," Crystal said. "Okay, then . . . you do what you can, sweetie.

"And . . . Polly, I think you should tell your mother about this."

"Um," Polly said, blushing and banishing her light spell. "I sort of already did . . . ."

"You did?" Crystal said, sounding surprised.

"Yeah, I did," Polly said, She looked at Wesley, said, "I'm sorry, I should have told you. But . . . Mom and I have this deal we made, where we tell each other everything, even the stuff that might be bad, and . . . and it's worked for years, and I didn't want to break it, not even for this. And it . . . well, after I did a spell or two for her, she believed it, and — and she thinks it might explain some things about my dad."

"Polly, telling your mother is perfectly all right," Wes said. "But . . . what sort of things might it explain about your father?"

"Dad vanished when I was three," Polly said. "I only barely remember him, but . . . Mom's told me a lot about him, even the things she didn't understand.

"Dad, he was a writer. Fantasy and science fiction, mostly. No novels published, but enough short stories that he could have had a book of those done. And when he married Mom, he told her that there were times he'd have to be away, and that he couldn't explain the why, but that he'd tell her when he could.

"And he could do things, things that . . . that made no sense to Mom. Once she dropped her wedding ring down a vent in the old house we had, she couldn't even see it, and was afraid we'd have to call a furnace guy to come get it out, because the vents were old and deep and stuff, but Dad just asked her to let him try to get it. She moved, and Dad reached down the vent — and came up with her ring. Said it caught on a joint in the vent, but mom had looked with a flashlight, and never seen it.

"And the night he left and didn't come back . . . well, he forgot to take his umbrella, and it was raining, so mom went after him — like two seconds after he went out — and he was gone. She said . . . she said she thought she saw him for a second, but it was like he was a ghost, all see-through — and he faded away as he went off the porch."

"My god," Locke said, speaking for the first time since Wes had explained how they found him. He sounded awed and impressed. "Polly . . . did someone come and tell you mother that your father had died? And perhaps bring back some of his things?"

"Yeah, this guy — I remember him, he was weird — came and said that there'd been an accident, and that Daddy had been killed." Polly looked puzzled, and said, "And he brought a check for mom, said it was Daddy's insurance — but Mom got a letter from the insurance company later, saying that they couldn't pay death benefits until he'd been declared legally dead, and that takes seven years. She did it when I was ten.

"Oh, and he brought back Daddy's walking stick. Mom gave it to me, I use it sometimes — it's neat."

"Polly," Locke said very softly, "do you have a birthmark near your heart? One that your mother has said looks like one your father had, maybe? Two circles with two lines passing between them, coming to a point above the circles?"

"I — how did you know that?" Polly asked. "Mom did mention that Daddy had one like it, but darker. How did you know that?"

"I . . . I know," Locke said. He sounded rather befuddled, as he often did when he knew something without understanding how or why he knew. "I know because . . . because the Strangers are allies to the Light . . . and your father was a Stranger, as you may someday be."

"A Stranger?" Polly said, putting the capital letter on the word with her pronunciation, as Locke had. "What's a Stranger?"

"I . . . they guard the ways between," Locke said, visibly trembling now. "The Strangers prevent . . . prevent bleed-over. Stop those who would move between . . . between . . . black damnation, I don't know!"

"Hey, easy," Dawn said, moving to hug Locke tightly. "Easy, Locke — don't push, it'll only upset you. Don't push, okay?"

"I . . . yes," Locke said. "All right. I'll let it go, hope more comes later."

"The strangers are sorcerers, aren't they?" Wesley asked, his voice casual.

"Yes, they are wielders of magic," Lock replied automatically. "They use their magic in the service of the Light, make safe the paths between for those who must travel them — and prevent those who would abuse the paths from doing so.

"Hey! You did it again! You got around my stupid amnesia!"

"Yes, I'm glad it worked," Wesley said. "Polly . . . your father's gift for magic is probably why you have the power. With your mother not being magical, the dilution of the ability is probably why it failed you so often as it did at first."

"Whoa," Polly said. "Locke . . . thanks. I mean — every little bit helps."

"You're welcome," Locke said, sounding tired and shaky. "I'm glad it helps a little."

"All right, I think that's enough for now," Wesley said. "Crystal, I realize this has been a shock to all of you, so if you'd rather I took Dawn home with me, and we rescheduled this, I'd understand."

"Not on your life," Crystal said. "Dawn saved our lives, Wesley — she's welcome here any time, and that very much includes right now."

"All right then," Wesley said. "Thank you for allowing Jazz to assist us, and for letting Dawn stay — I know she was looking forward to this.

"Polly, would you like a ride home?"

Polly accepted the offer, Dawn hugged her, hugged Locke once more, hugged Wesley, and said she'd be home for dinner the next day.

"Okay," Crystal said, once Wes and Locke had gone. "It's been a weird night. I'm not cooking, it's too late for that. So . . . Papa Gepetto's Pizza, anyone?"

That idea went over very well.


	11. 10: To Protect and Serve

Summers Pryce: Chapter 10

To Protect and Serve

The Redmans and Dawn ate pizza, and Dawn and Jazz went off to Jazz's room, compared autographs and conversations with celebrities, watched a couple of scary movies on Jazz's TV ("No vampires tonight, please?" Dawn asked, and Jazz agreed readily).

The girls stayed up too late talking, fell asleep talking in Jazz's huge bed. Dawn woke first, and giggled softly — Jazz had snuggled up to her while they slept, and Dawn knew without being able to see that this would make an incredibly cute picture.

Jazz woke a half an hour later, seemed a bit embarrassed to find herself with her head pillowed on Dawn's shoulder and an arm thrown across Dawn's waist.

"Oh, relax," Dawn said. "After the evening we had? A desire for cuddling is just natural."

"I guess you're right," Jazz said, relaxing. "Okay. Sorry."

"Nothing to be sorry for," Dawn said. She made no move to get up or to move away from Jazz. "Trust me, as weird as things were for me for a while after . . . after Buffy died, well . . . it feels good to feel okay about snuggling."

"Okay," Jazz said — and they lay there until Crystal knocked and stuck her head in, told them that if they wanted food, they'd have to get up pretty soon.

They ate, then watched another movie and talked about books until Dawn went home before dinner.

As Dawn told Wes and Locke that she'd had a wonderful, relaxed time, someone else in another part of the city demonstrated his complete _lack_ of relaxation.

"What exactly do you mean," a voice grated, almost growled, "when you say that Light's Champion is still alive?"

"I saw him, boss," the lean, wiry man who stood before the desk said. "Plain as day, buying cigarettes in that tobacco shop on Fifteenth, right across from Casey's Pub. It was him — no mistaking him."

"Get me Alvarez and Johnson in here, right now," the boss said. "Dammit — if Kingston hadn't gotten his stupid ass killed, I'd have him in here, too. Move it Preston."

"On the way, boss," Preston said, and left the office. He found the secretary — okay, the whore playing secretary today — and told her to call in Miguel Alvarez and Howie Johnson right away, adding, "Tell them to report to my office — and that I'll take them to see the boss."

Half an hour later, the slender Hispanic wizard and the big Black man who often acted as his bodyguard appeared at Preston's office, and he stood and led them to the boss's office — which caused them both to break into a sweat, he saw as he stood aside to let them into the office before him.

"Alvarez," the boss said, his voice deceptively calm, "you cast a spell after you woke up on Devil's Night, determined that Light's Champion was dead, correct?"

"Yes, boss," the wizard said. "I did it while Johnson was dealing with the cops over Kingston's body."

"What, exactly, does that spell do?" the boss asked.

"It locks onto a living mind, locates it, shows a point of light at the place where the mind currently is," Alvarez said. "Normally, it requires knowing your target, but with a Champion of the light, I can get a reading without knowing the target — their minds are different, thanks to the things the Light does for them, the information it gives them."

"Is there anything that could block it?" the boss asked — and Preston saw Alvarez begin to squirm a little.

"Not traditionally, no," Alvarez said. "But . . . well, if he fell from the Light, that'd work. Or if he was in a coma. Or maybe certain forms of amnesia. Other than that . . . only LSD can block it, and he'd never do acid, he's all righteous and bitchy about that."

"Is there any way to tell if he fell?" the boss asked.

"I know he didn't fall," Alvarez said immediately. "There's a shift in power when that happens, boss. A big one. Nothing like that came up."

"Okay, so . . . do the spell again," the boss said. "Now."

"I — I'll need a map," Alvarez said. "And some stuff from my car."

"Get your stuff," the boss ordered. "Preston, get him a map.

"Johnson . . . get out of here. This isn't on you."

Johnson left quickly, relief visible on his face.

Twenty minutes later, Alvarez cast his spell, and for a moment — just for a moment — all three in the office saw a tiny point of white light on the map, moving down First Avenue between Lincoln and Sherwood at the edge of downtown.

"_¡Hijo de puta!"_ Alvarez said. "I've never seen anything like that, not ever!"

"What does it mean?" the boss asked, mollified by the honest surprise and shock on Alvarez's face and in his voice.

"I — I'm guessing, boss," Alvarez cautioned, "but there ain't no hospital there, so . . . I'm guessing he's got some sort of amnesia, and that flash meant that he was remembering, just for a second, something given him by the Light. He lost the memory, the light went out."

"Fuck," the boss said. He looked thoughtful for a moment, then sighed. "Okay, will something like that be permanent? Any chance of that?"

"Tiny one," Alvarez said. "Ain't no movie — amnesia like that, it's usually temporary. And if he's remembering at all, it's damn sure not to last forever. He could remember everything any minute now — or next week, next month, or a couple of years from now. No way to tell — but he will remember."

"Damn him," the boss said. "Okay . . . Alvarez, don't shit me, now. If I were to give you a blank check for supplies, could you do a Tempus Fugitive spell?"

Alvarez blinked in surprise, then slowly shook his head. "No, boss. Not for sure. I could maybe do it — but you shouldn't risk the kind of money you need for the ingredients on one of those on me and my maybe."

"Okay, that's fair," the boss said. "So can you find me someone who can?"

"I think so," Alvarez said. "Got some major talent out there — but it won't be real fast, I don't think. A week, maybe two. We're talking about one of maybe two dozen people on Earth who've got that sort of power for _sure,_ boss."

"Get on it," the boss said. "I can't risk . . . him. Not with what's coming. He's got to go. And it's got to be within a year. If this doesn't work, well . . . I want time to try other options.

"Old Ones' bones! A Champion of the Light! Dammit, I hate this shit."

"Look at it this way, boss," Alvarez said. "At least it ain't the Slayer."

"Yeah, I need that like I need a set of rubber claws," the boss said, drumming his thick, sharp claws on his desk and striking sparks from the metal surface. "Get to it, Alvarez. Preston, tell accounting that Alvarez has a ten-k budget for finding me a wizard for this spell, and the wizard gets five mill for ingredients once he's hired — over and above the million I'll pay for the casting.

"Oh — and Alvarez, I'll need something to distract the Strangers. Can you do that?"

"Oh, hell yes," Alvarez said. "You send me out of town — at least five hundred miles, I'd recommend — and give me a budget of two-k, and I'll guarantee you that the Strangers won't notice a thing here — at least, not before it's too late."

"Done," the boss said. "I'll send you to . . . I've got contacts in Miami. Two-k for ingredients and a five-k bonus for the distraction.

"Now get on it."

Alvarez left, and the boss sighed. He looked up at Preston, said, "You know, there are days when I wonder why I got out of bed. The fucking Champion — that bitch has nine lives, I swear.

"Okay, get on the numbers for the sale on Friday — and send in Dominique with a file — my horns need sharpened, and I need laid."

Preston went out, trying hard _not_ to imagine Dominique — a painfully sexy brunette with a definite Italian look to her — servicing the gray skinned and definitely demonic figure of his boss.

"That was a good dinner, thanks, Wes," Dawn said from the back seat.

""You're quite welcome," Wes said. "I've long had a weakness for Indian food, and that place does a wonderful curried lamb."

"I've never had Indian food before, I don't think," Locke said from the back seat. "In fact, I don't think I'd ever had pizza before I met you two."

"My god, you poor man," Dawn said. "What did you live on? I mean, pizza, that's a prime food group, all by itself."

"Oh, meat, potatoes, vegetables," Locke said. "The usual."

"How old are you, Locke?" Wesley asked.

"The Light froze my age at nineteen," Locke said automatically. "And it's been . . . been . . . I don't know."

"Don't push," Dawn said automatically. "It's okay. No need to push it.

"Hey, I've been thinking about a sword — can you make something that's heavier than a saber, but lighter than a longsword? Double edged and tapered to a point?"

"I think so," Locke said, leaning back and looking thoughtful. "I'll sketch a couple of things when we get home, and we'll see what we can come up with."

Locke's mind skittered away from the things that the Light had given him to know, the abilities he had, and on a map in another part of the city, a tiny light dimmed away to nothing.

The week passed by without event. Having had a taste of fighting, understanding better what they'd be up against, Jazz and Polly threw themselves more completely into their training than before, even, and impressed both Wesley and Sensei Stanton.

Friday night, Wesley took the three girls and Lock on an abbreviated patrol, checking a park near a dingy residential neighborhood where several people had disappeared over the course of the week — and that happened to be across the street from a cemetery.

All of them carried stakes, and Locke the saber that he'd made for himself. Wesley also carried a first aid pack, though it went unused that night.

They found the park deserted — but they also found a fresh blood stain in the snow at the edge of the park, not even frozen yet, and this right across from the cemetery.

The five of them crept into the cemetery, sticking to the neatly plowed driving paths to avoid the crunching of snow beneath their feet. Towards the back of the cemetery, they heard music — and Wesley motioned Locke forward to reconnoiter.

Locke crept off through the trees, moving with a silence that bordered on the supernatural, and came back in five minutes or so, visibly seething with rage.

"There is a caretaker's shed back there," Locke said softly. "I think it must have once included quarters for a watchman or caretaker to live in, as the second story is more like a house than a shed. There are eight vampires in the shed, on the upper story, and they have a pair of teens — a girl and a boy, and he has a bloody nose — chained to the wall. They are all in full vampire face, and are . . taunting the kids, telling them what they're going to do to them."

"Fear junkies," Wesley said, looking grim. At the puzzled looks of the others, he said, "Sorry — vampires who prefer the blood of their victims as saturated as possible with the chemicals that result from fear. Ordinary fear isn't enough, so they prolong the terror, psychologically torturing their victims, sometimes even physically torturing them."

"Okay, time to make dust," Dawn said decisively. "How do we play this, boss?"

"Eight of them . . . I don't like the numbers." Wes looked disgusted. "And a firebomb is out of the question, with the young people in there."

"Wes, what if they couldn't see?" Polly asked, a gleam of wickedness in her eyes. "The vampires, I mean. Would that help?"

"Immeasurably," Wes agreed. "But darkness will inhibit us as much as them, perhaps more."

"Actually, I was thinking of going the other direction," Polly said. "Look, I'm willing to ride drag on entering the fight — show me where you guys are going in, and I'll do my spell, then come in. If you guys clean up before I get there, well, I'll be okay with it — I'll still have done my share."

"Hmm, yes," Wesley said. "I see the potential.

"All right — Locke, can you sketch the layout for us in the snow, here?"

Three minutes later, Dawn, Locke, Jazz and Wes stood at the door to the stairwell that led up to the living space above the caretaker's shed. Locke, whose time sense was most accurate, kept a soft running countdown going, and when he reached ten, all four closed their eyes and covered them with coat-covered arms.

On the other side of the shed, back quite a distance so that she could see into the upper part of the house, and the room where the vampires cavorted, Polly counted down for herself. At zero, she raised both hands before her face, clasped them, then jerked them apart quickly, shouting "PHOTUS MAXIMUS!" as she did so.

Intensely bright white light streamed from the windows of the upper story, making the place look, for a moment, like a lighthouse on a stormy night. From inside came screams and snarls of rage.

Polly dropped the light spell and ran towards the house, grinning with a sense of accomplishment.

She missed most of the battle, but did manage to body-check one vamp who'd managed to find the stairs back into the room, knocked him back to land at Jazz's feet. To be sure the vampire stayed helpless, Jazz stomped on his groin before staking him.

Dawn had one pushed into a corner, kicking it repeatedly in the head until its arms sagged, at which point she staked it and spun towards Locke, who had a pair fighting him, if badly for their lack of vision. His saber flashed back and forth, opening many cuts on them, until Dawn called, "Left!"

Locke kicked the one on his left, sent it flying backwards past Dawn and into the wall. AS it rebounded, Dawn simply held out her stake, and the vampire dusted when it ran into the wooden weapon, even as Locke, now able to focus his efforts on a single target, beheaded his with a broad swipe of his saber.

And that ended it. For a moment, no one said a word, then Locke said softly and reverentially, "_In nomine Lucis."_

"In the name of the Light," Wesley agreed solemnly.

"Who — who are you?" asked the girl chained to the wall, while the boy stared and blinked, trying to clear the spots before his eyes.

"We're the good guys," Dawn said happily. "Uh-oh — I don't see a key anywhere. Boss, if one of them had the key on him . . . ?"

"It's dust by now," Wesley said. "All right, we'll have to get some tools from the shed to set them free. Just hang on for a few minutes more, and we'll get you out of here."

"Wait, I think I can do this," Polly said. She pulled a grease pencil from her pocket, went to the girl and said, "Hold your arm out, okay — and I'm going to have to touch you."

"That's fine!" the girl said. "You ain't no monster, you _killed_ the monsters — you guys rock!"

Polly grinned, drew a tiny, simple magic circle on each of the four cuffs, then stepped back and gathered herself mentally before saying in a clear voice, "_Expedio a catena!"_

All four handcuffs fell open with the sound of something small and metallic breaking.

"Th-thanks!" the boy said. "Um, should we . . . you know, call the cops?"

"They'd never believe you," Jazz said. "But you know, maybe you should stay in after dark as much as you can — and avoid cemeteries."

"You ain't kidding," the girl said. "Think I'll have myself cremated when I die — I ain't even gotta go into a cemetery then, that way."

"Come along, we'll walk you to the street," Wesley said. "Do you live far from here?"

"About two blocks," the boy said. "But I'm gonna walk three or four, now, to avoid this place!"

They walked the kids out, and stood watching them until they turned into a yard some two blocks down.

"Well," Wesley said, "as a first exercise, I can only say . . . _very_ well done, people."

They went back to the brownstone with the younger people chattering merrily, filling Polly in on what she'd missed, and Wesley smiling a small, satisfied smile, and thinking to himself, _Now . . . now I am the Watcher I should been from the beginning_.

When they reached the brownstone it was only nine, and Jazz and Polly didn't have to be home until midnight, so the girls sat and talked, while Locke sketched possible designs for Dawn's proposed sword.

After an hour or so, Polly sat up straight and said, "Hey, Wes? You know a good bit about magic, right?"

"Quite a bit, yes," Wes said. "I'm not capable of working with natural magical power, as I have none, but I am a capable ritualist."

"Well, there's this bulletin board I've been poking around on online," Polly said, coming over to Wesley's desk. "And there's a guy — or maybe a girl, no way to tell — who's been asking if anyone had anything on this list of ingredients he put on there, and he's offering 'high-end payment' for the things. He won't say what the stuff's for, though. I wrote the list down, thought you might have an idea what he's trying to do. I get nervous when people get cagey about magic."

Polly found her purse, pulled a paper out of it and handed it to Wesley. He looked it over, and blinked in surprise.

"A bone from the foot of a Gallimimus?" Wesley said. "I don't even know what a Gallimimus is, I'm afraid."

"Dinosaur," Polly said. "Reputed to have been really fast, could run at up to forty-three miles per hour. I looked it up."

"Hmm," Wesley said. "Gears from a clock made between fifteen and sixteen hundred, an autographed copy of Gregory Benford's Timescape, a — oh, please! A model of Dr. Who's TARDIS?!"

"Weird, huh?" Polly said. "Look at the next thing on the list."

" 'Any article of clothing ever worn by Stephen Hawking,' dear lord," Wesley said with a sigh. "This is a bit eccentric. Have you tried looking into it? If you found a bulletin board online, I dare say you've probably got other resources."

"I've looked, but I can't find anything," Polly said.

"Well, I'll see what I can find," Wesley said. "Obviously, this relates to time, or so I surmise — but that really isn't much of a clue, when you think about it."

Eventually, he drove the girls home, then went home and to bed, very satisfied with his Slayer's first patrol.


	12. 11: Alas! Time Stays, We Go

Summers Pryce: Chapter 11

Alas, Time Stays, We Go.

The following day, Wesley had some luck in something he'd been attempting since first coming to Detroit.

He managed to cultivate a contact in Detroit's underground demon society.

He'd been trying for the whole six weeks he'd been in town, and only last week had finally found a demon-patronized bar that admitted humans who would accept the risks associated with hanging around demons. Wes knew the secret of surviving a demon bar, learned from Angel; don't be nosy, don't stare, drink your drink and keep to yourself. If someone messes with you, show strength immediately — and Wes had enough sorcerous skills to feel comfortable, and he hadn't had to demonstrate them, yet. He also kept his business to the afternoon, thus avoiding the vampires that would inevitably come here.

Saturday afternoon, he headed into the bar — called Midnight Jack's — and found a fight going on in the alley. Two Culdehan demons — rather apelike, if apes stood seven feet tall — had a single Mathros demon bouncing back and forth between them, had started turning shoves into punches as he turned into the alley. Wes had been bullied enough as a boy to immediately feel pity for the Mathros demon — a small species, averaging around five-six and a hundred and fifty pounds, and whose only demonic ability amounted to being able to turn invisible in shadow — so he intervened.

"All right, that's about enough," Wesley said, stopping some twenty feet from the escalating fight. "Leave him alone, he's not a third the size of either of you."

The nearer Culdehan looked at Wesley and growled, "Stay out of it, human. He's our play toy."

Wes smiled. Culdehan demons were big, and powerful — and not terribly bright. They also had a weakness, one Wesley know how to exploit. Their bones contained large quantities of metal, to support their massive frames, and they did not like electricity. Rather than carry a taser, Wesley had learned a simple, low-power lightning spell, which he recited under his breath now.

Suddenly, Wesley's hands filled with crackling electrical energy, even as the spell protected him from that same energy.

"Perhaps you didn't hear me," he said evenly. "I said leave him alone."

The Culdehan looked around again, saw the energy in Wesley's hand — and flinched.

"Rall," the first demon said, "we should go now."

"What are you — oh." The second demon looked at Wesley nervously. "Hey, human — we were just havin' a little fun here. Nobody hurt nobody or nothin'. So you don't gotta . . . you know. T'row dat at nobody."

"Then I think you two should go drink somewhere else," Wesley said. "And not bother my friend ever again. If he gets hurt, I shall come looking for you."

"Yeah, dat's good," Rall said. "Okay, let's go Hom."

The two demons edged around Wesley, watching his hands nervously, while the Mathros watched warily. Once the Culdehan's had left the alley via the basement of a nearby building (which has access to the sewer system, Wes knew from listening in the bar), he let the lightning in his hands go away.

"Hey," the Mathros said, his voice oddly low, given his size. "Thanks. But, you know — why'd you do it?"

"I never could stand a bully," Wesley said, and shrugged. "I was a target for bullies for some years in my school days, so I've a special hatred of them."

"Okay, makes sense," the Mathros said, and held out his hand. "I'm Lojat. You can call me Lo."

"Wesley," he said, and shook the demon's hand. "Or Wes."

"Come on, Wes," Lo said. "I'll buy you a drink. Owe you that, at least."

They had a beer together, and Wes asked what Lo did for a living.

"Oh, mostly I work for a couple private eyes," Lo said. "Humans, but in the know, like you. Since I can go invisible in shadow or dim light, I'm good at surveillance. And sometimes I scout new areas of sewer that open up, since if there's humans there, they can't see me. Pays the rent."

"That makes sense," Wesley said. "Hmm. Lo, do you ever . . . hear things?"

"I hear lots," Lo admitted. "You looking for ears underneath?"

"That's about it," Wesley admitted. "I'm too new here to find things out for myself. And I have . . . concerns."

"Anything in particular you're concerned about?" Lo asked after looking around to make sure no one had come close to the booth they occupied in the back of the bar.

"Actually, yes," Wes said, leaning closer. "And I will, of course, pay for information on my . . . chosen interests."

"Ah, I owe you," Lo said. "I'll let you know when you need to pay. What are you interested in?"

"On Devil's Night, someone ordered a factory burned down, and hired a Thoknara demon to do it," Wesley said. "The thing is, they weren't looking to destroy the factory — they wanted to kill a man I've come to call a friend. And they are likely to do so again."

"Oh, boy," Lo said. "You're looking for the steep stuff right off the bat, huh?"

"Am I, then?" Wes asked. "I honestly don't know."

"Yeah, this is hot," Lo said. "And it's . . . outside my usual circle. But I can tell you this; somebody — don't know who, on my father's egg — is moving into the illegal human stuff and the illegal demon stuff. Pretty sure it's a demon doing the moving, but I don't know for sure — I stay away from the sort of thing I hear he's into. And this demon, this guy, whichever, he wants a certain guy dead, a Champion of the Light. And he's going to pretty severe lengths to get it done, if what I hear is right."

"What did you hear?" Wesley asked.

"Seems that this demon or guy — no one ever refers to him as anything but 'the boss' where anyone can hear — has hired himself a serious wizard to do a seriously scary spell." Lo looked around again, nervous about discussing this. "I don't know what sort of spell, but if it goes off, this Champion, he's supposed to just pretty much cease to exist."

"Bloody hell," Wesley said. "All right — is there anything else you can tell me?"

"Yeah, I . . . look, don't be pissed, okay, because I didn't know what this was for, hadn't even met you yet, you know?" Lo said. "So I didn't know this was aimed at a guy you call friend.

"Yesterday, I played courier, brought in a special item for a wizard — human guy, he's not the one doing the big spell, he's small potatoes — named Alvarez. Had to come in from underground, see, and go past a human work crew, so they got me. A vial of something that glowed green, liquid, a little thick, like blood.

"Alvarez, he tipped nice — and said they were using it tonight, because the moon phases were identical, or something. I didn't get where, though."

"Damnation," Wesley said. "Lo . . . is there anyway you might find out where? I was serious about this Champion being my friend."

"I might be able to," Lo said. "But I think I better move fast. Got a number?"

Wes gave Lo a card with the number of the brownstone on it, and printed his cell number on the back.

"Lo . . . if you find anything out, I'll be in your debt," Wesley said. "And I pay my debts."

"Ah, forget it," Lo said. "I have to spread any cash around, you can pay that back. Past that . . . nobody ever stuck up for me before, let alone anybody human."

"I see," Wesley said. He thought for a moment, then said, "As I recall, Mathros demons as a species are very, very fond of certain human delicacies. If you help me save my friend, I will treat you to the best lasagna in the city — best by your definition."

"Now that is a deal I can't resist," Lo said, standing up. "Hey . . . one more thing. You're a Brit, right?"

"I'm English, yes," Wesley said. "Why do you ask?"

"Everybody knows those guys that run the Slayer are Brits," Lo said slowly. "You're a Brit, you're down with the demonology, you know magic, you're friends with a Champion of the Light . . . and word is, there's a Slayer in town."

"The Slayer in question is, in fact, a friend of that same Champion," Wesley said. "I can assure you, Lo, that you are safe from her — just for _trying_ to find out what you can."

"Good deal," Lo said. "You know, I'm glad I met you. Never thought I'd say that about a human."

"I'm glad I met you, as well," Wes said, shaking Lo's hand. "Though I've a bit more experience in cross-species friendships. There was a time when a vampire was my best friend, and a Pylean demon was a definite friend."

"Best friend was a — you talking about Angel?" Lo asked, staring in amazement.

"Yes, we were friends, before I . . . bollixed it," Wes said.

"Wow, you're that guy, huh?" Lo asked, impressed. "Freed Pylea from the Wolf, the Ram and the Hart, and all that. Doubly glad we're friends, now."

"Thank you, Lo," Wesley said. "It's nice to know I've got a reputation."

"Yeah, you do," Lo agreed. "Okay, I'm out — I'll call you soon as I know anything."

They shook hands again, and both left, going different directions.

Wesley went home, called Dawn and Locke into the study on his second floor, and told them what he had learned and how.

"Oh, crap," Dawn said. "They're going to wipe Locke out of existence?! No way, we have to stop it! I hope your demon buddy comes through."

"As do I," Wesley said. "However . . . in the meantime, Locke, it might be best to place you in a warded circle."

"No," Locke said, his voice soft but firm. "I will not cower, for that is not the way. Your friend will find something, and we will stop this. I am sure."

"Yeah, but Locke, you're our friend, and —" Dawn started.

"I am your friend, and I hope to be your friend forever," Locke said, reaching over and squeezing Dawn's hand. "But I am a Champion of the Light, Dawn — and like you must put being a Slayer over friendship, I must put being a Champion first."

"I . . . okay," Dawn said. "But Locke, if something happens to you, I'm kicking your ass!"

"All right," Locke said, chuckling. "I suppose that's fair."

"We'll stop it," Wesley said. "We'll stop it, one way or another."

They were just preparing to sit down to supper when the phone rang, and Wesley grabbed it, saying, "Wyndham-Pryce."

"Hey, Wes, it's Lo," the Mathros demon said. "I think you can relax a little, okay? Not all the way, but some."

"What did you find out?" Wesley asked.

"The spell these people are doing comes in two parts," Lo said. "The first part, they do tonight, and I couldn't get where — sorry — but it's only prepping all the ingredients for the second part, which they're doing at noon tomorrow, in a warehouse out on the end of McDougall Street on the waterfront. Big place, empty, and you can't miss it — it's painted yellow. They're starting the spell at noon, but the demon I heard it from didn't say what it's for, or how long it'll take to cast it."

"Excellent, Lo, thank you," Wesley said, scribbling down the information on the warehouse. "You've very likely enabled me to save my friend. No, strike that — one of my friends. You're definitely in that category yourself."

"Ah, thanks — but seriously, it wasn't any big deal." Lo hesitated a moment, then said, "Hey, listen, if you need some extra muscle tomorrow . . . I'm not much hand-to-hand, but I'm sudden death with a shotgun, and I got a couple beauties."

"I appreciate the offer, Lo," Wes said, "but I think I'd rather you didn't fight demons if it's not absolutely necessary — I don't want you being outcast from your own society. In fact — you aren't going to get in trouble for this, are you, if we stop it?"

"Nah, no danger," Lo said, sounding pleased that Wes felt worried. "The Kogan demon I got it from was talking his ass off in a different demon bar — one where you should never go, they don't permit humans. But there had to be fifty, sixty demons in there. No way to connect it to me."

"All right," Wesley said. "I'll call you after it's over, and we can schedule a time for dinner — I owe you that lasagna, at the very least."

"I won't say no to that," Lo said. "Hey — be careful. The wizard they got for this, he's got some serious mojo going. And there are likely to be some demons along for muscle, and armed humans."

"Yes, we'll be careful, thank you," Wesley said. He hung up, looked at Dawn, and said, "Call Jazz and Polly, ask if they can come here about ten tomorrow morning. Tell them it's a mission."

"Got it," Dawn said, and grabbed the phone.

The next morning at ten, Jazz and Polly both showed up, Polly with what she called her "magic box," a heavy leather bag with roughly three million little pockets, and what could only be her father's walking stick, a piece of beautifully sanded and finished wood that stood about four feet high.

"Wes, Locke . . . you were right," Polly said. "This was Daddy's walking stick and it . . . it pack some serious magic. It's like having a boost of power, an extra battery, and it makes things just . . . easier, that's all."

"Excellent," Wesley said. "We may need that boost today."

Wes laid out the little that he knew, and gave them the rather necessarily fluid and adaptable plan that he'd come up with, finishing with, "No matter what else, we must prevent the focal element of whatever their spell is from being enacted, acted upon, or used, whichever is the case."

They piled into the Trailblazer and left for the warehouse as soon as Wes had finished with the briefing. They arrived near the place at eleven-thirty, and given that Locke was the target, had Dawn scout it out.

"It's bad," Dawn said when she came back ten minutes later. "Lots of guards, and they've all got radios, and check in fairly often. I counted a dozen guards in six pairs, one pair at each corner and one at the middle of each of the two long sides.

"Wes, I think this is going to be somewhere between really hard and totally impossible to do on the quiet."

"Well, then we'll just have to make a bit of noise, won't we?" Wes said, shrugging. "I'm not totally opposed. Though I don't like the comm gear. Polly, can you do anything about that?"

"Sure, I can whip something up," Polly said. "Let me think . . . okay, yeah. First I lock in on their frequency, then I establish feedback. I can do that. Two minutes."

"Right then, that'll be good," Wesley said. "Then . . . well, I rather like the idea of going in through the main doors, rather loudly — and very violently."

Polly cast her spell, and they saw the two guards in their field of vision jerk off their headset radios.

"That's it," Wesley said. "We wait five minutes for them to report the equipment failure and get orders, then go in. Dawn — you're the point on this. Locke, bring up the rear, hopefully your entrance will distract them and give the rest of us time to act."

"Understood," Locke said, loosening his saber in its scabbard.

"Polly, stay away from their circle — if your walking stick is a power source, we don't want them to have access to that power," Wesley said. "Work the edges of the room, and do not attempt a direct assault on their wizard — he'll be warded. However . . . you have displayed an affinity for probabilities, with the effectiveness of your Desire's Luck spell. Perhaps you could do something to make the luck of the opposition go sour?"

"Oh, yeah," Polly said. "I've got one — Gambler's Bane, that'll mess them up."

"All right," Wesley said. "Four minutes, then."

At the appointed moment, Dawn approached the two guards in front of the main doors on the long northeast side of the building. They stiffened to attention, and one said, "I'm sorry, miss, this is private property, you'll have to leave."

"Okay," Dawn said, "but I don't suppose you've seen my little sister? She's ten, blond hair, walking a dog about twice her size? A big mutt, part St. Bernard?"

"No, I'm afraid not," the guard said. "There's a security building down on Campau Street, at the corner of Campau and Wight Avenue. Maybe they could help you."

"Hey, thanks!" Dawn said — and punched the man in the gut, doubling him over, reached across him to grab his companion and jerk his face into her fist. She knocked the first one out (as opposed to just down), then strolled to the doors casually, hearing her friends approach behind her.

"Wes, do I open it or kick it in?" Dawn asked.

"The latter, I think," Wesley said. He smiled and added, "Much more distracting, and that can't be a bad thing, right now."

"Okay," Dawn said — and kicked the left-most of the double doors as hard as she could, tearing it from its hinges and sending it flying across the room.

Almost two dozen people and demons stood ranged around the room, while a single human knelt at the edge of a magic circle in the middle — and a large, powerful-looking orange-skinned demon with four long arms, each jointed an extra time and each hand holding a heavily curved sword, stood at the center of the circle.

"Anybody wanna buy some Girl Scout cookies?" Jazz asked brightly from behind Dawn.

"Get them!" roared a large, no-neck-thug type. "Kill them all!"

"Okay, no thin mints for you!" Jazz said, and followed Dawn in as the Slayer charged the group of men who started charging her.

Dawn did a beautiful jumping side kick into the man at the front of the group, even as Polly performed her bad luck spell.

"_Infortunium inimicus!"_ Polly said, holding her stick out in one hand, and tossing a small handful of black cat hair into the air with the other.

The man Dawn kicked flew backwards into his companions, and all seven went down in a crumbled heap. As Dawn turned to face the next group, a mere four, she heard Locke shout, "_Adversor Atra in nomine Lucis!"_

"No!" shouted a demon who had started forward. "No, not now!"

"Now," Wesley said calmly — and shot the demon through the chest with his crossbow, dropped the weapon, and pulled his long sword.

Dawn saw one of the men in the group she faced now stop and try to pull a gun from under his suit jacket — but the hammer caught on something in his coat, and it wouldn't come free. She punched one man, kicked a demon — and the man with the gun jerked harder on it and it went off, pointing down and slightly in towards the man, who screamed and dropped his hand from the gun as he fell to the floor, bleeding from a long, deep graze down the outside of his leg.

"Shot yourself in the foot, huh?" Jazz quipped from behind Dawn, where she had been kicking the men Dawn had knocked down in the kidneys and crotches (whichever seemed easier to reach) to keep them down.

Locke passed them, headed for the next oncoming group, even as Wes moved along behind him, backing the Champion up like Jazz backed Dawn up.

Dawn fought hard for a moment against the last demon, a slender, whip-thin creature that had speed she could barely match, blocking furiously and looking for a chance to counter — and the demon fell to the floor as it slipped in the blood of the man who'd shot himself. Dawn immediately stomped on the demon's neck, killing it, and tossed a grin back at Polly in thanks for her bad luck spell.

Locke and Wes had things in control over there — though watching them fight could only be called a study in contrasts, as Locke's movement were flashy, powerful, and obscenely graceful to Wesley's short, economical and vicious — so Dawn turned to the wizard and the circle, just as the wizard's voice started rising as he approached the end of his spell.

"AGNEZAL ARRATHAME H'LIDOR!" the wizard bellowed, head thrown back and eyes closed. "GRATAJ VEILAS KODRAZ BELARE KIHNJULL!"

Dawn charged the wizard, hit something that felt like a wall of electricity, and got flung back. She picked herself up, glared — and tried a different tactic. She charged the spell circle, jumped at the multiple-armed, orange-skinned demon within it, managed to kick it out of the circle, though its mass was such that she fell in its place.

"VEILAS KODRAZ!" the wizard shouted — and the magic circle lit up. "VEILAS BELARE!"

"Dawn, no!" Jazz shouted, and charged the circle herself, leaping into the air to tackle Dawn and knock her clear of the spell.

"VEILAS KIHNJULL!"

Just as Jazz's extended hands hit Dawn's shoulders, the spell went off — and both girls vanished in a huge flash of light.

"DAWN!" Wesley yelled. "JAZZ!"

Locke charged the multi-armed demon, engaged him, as Wesley ran for the human wizard, who'd just risen to his feet. The man saw Wesley and turned to run — only to discover Polly standing behind him, her father's walking stick back behind her like a baseball bat. He stepped forward, reaching for Polly, and she swung the stick, slammed it across the wizard's gut, knocked him to the ground gasping and gagging.

"Where did you send my friends, you slimy son of a bitch?!" Polly snarled, stepping closer. "Where?! Answer me!"

"Fuck you," the wizard gasped. "I'm not saying anything!"

"I wouldn't bet on that," Wesley said, his voice hard and cold. "No, I wouldn't bet on that at all, little wizard."

"Little — do you know who I am?!" the wizard choked.

"You're the man who just did something to two young ladies whose safety and well being are my responsibility," Wesley said, kicking the man in the ribs and beginning to search him for weapons as he lay gasping on the floor. "You're the man who is going to tell me exactly what he did — or who will suffer like he won't believe for the lack of the telling."

"Fuck . . . you!" the wizard gasped. "I'm . . . not talking!"

"We'll see about that," Wesley said. He looked around, saw Locke approaching, having dispatched the demon that had been the spell's original focus. "Locke, find some rope, tie up the humans. Kill the demons. Then take Polly and wait for me outside."

"I can help!" Polly said. "I can help you make him talk, they're my friends, too!"

"No, Polly," Wes said softly. "Not this time. I won't have you help with the things I may have to do to make this . . . _creature_ talk."

"But —"

"He's right, Polly," Locke said as he gathered up a couple of coils of rope that sat on crates nearby. "He may have to do things . . . that you shouldn't see."

"What sort of — oh." Polly went pale, but nodded. "Okay, Wes. I'll wait outside."

"Before you go, look over that circle," Wesley said. "See if you can discern anything about it."

"Okay, right away," Polly said, and went to the circle.

"You think you've got the balls to torture me, is that it?" the wizard said, chuckling. "Oh, please — you can't do it."

"We'll see," Wesley said calmly.

The wizard didn't' seem to like that calm tone of voice, or the total lack of expression on Wesley's face. He shut up.

"Wes," Polly said from behind him, "look at this."

He turned to find Polly holding out a foot high model of an old British police call box.

"The TARDIS model," Polly said. "Wes . . . I got a bad feeling about this."

"As do I, Polly," Wesley said. "Can you determine anything from the circle?"

"Not much," she admitted, sounding frustrated. "Mostly it's way beyond me. Only thing I can say for sure is that it includes a teleport spell in it, one that moved them east. All I could get, I'm sorry!"

"No, that's all right," Wesley said. "It's more than I knew before.

"Locke seems to be done, Polly. You two go on outside. Deal with the remaining sentries out there, if they haven't left by now, please."

Locke and Polly went outside, Locke giving Wes a somber nod before he closed the door behind them.

"All right, then," Wes said, turning to the wizard. "Let's talk about where, exactly, you sent my Slayer and her friend, shall we?"

Ten minutes later, Wesley had his information. He mopped the blade of his sword on the sobbing wizard's shirt — then knocked the man unconscious with the pommel of the blade.

Wes walked to a nearby crate, sat on its top, and dry-scrubbed his face. He thought for a long moment, then sighed . . . and did the only thing he could do in order to get Dawn back.

He pulled his cell phone from a coat pocket, opened it, and scrolled down to a phone number that he hoped hadn't changed — he'd never even used it, but he'd put all the numbers on Angel's rolodex in his phone.

"Hello," he said when a voice on the other end answered the phone. "This is Wesley Wyndham-Pryce. Yes, yes, it has been a long time.

"Listen, I'm calling because I need your help, rather desperately. Yes, it's about . . . look, this may come as rather a shock, but . . . Dawn Summers has been with me for the last few weeks — and I'm afraid I've lost her, and I can't possibly get her back without your help."

As the voice on the other end of the phone began spewing rapid-fire questions, Wesley closed his eyes and sighed, hoped that he'd done the right thing — and started answering them.


	13. 12: Magical Mystery Tour

Summers Pryce: Chapter 12

Magical Mystery Tour

Jazz's hands hit Dawn's shoulders, trying to push her out of the magic circle, and —

— Dawn felt a wrenching, twisting sensation, heard a noise like a record being played at ten times its normal speed, fell backwards and —

— the light changed, changed completely, became outdoors light and Dawn suddenly felt hot in her ski jacket and sweater, even as she fell on the ground — grass-covered ground, not concrete — and Jazz landed on top of her, staring down into Dawn's eyes, her own eyes wide and shocked.

"Oh, boy," Dawn said. "Jazz? I don't think we're in Kansas anymore."

Jazz moved sideways off of Dawn, looked around — and had to agree.

Woods. They had arrived — somehow — in a small clearing in the woods. Dawn could recognize the trees, so at least they'd stayed in their home dimension (she hoped), but . . . more had changed than just the temperature, the season.

The air smelled fresh, clean — much better than Dawn had ever smelled it. And the sounds . . . all she heard seemed to be natural sounds. No motors, no hum of power lines . . . nothing.

"What . . . what happened?" Jazz asked, staring around.

"Well, you took an insane chance and tried to save me from whatever that circle did," Dawn said, totally without rancor, "and instead, you landed in the garbage heap with me."

"Uh . . . well, I — I couldn't just let whatever it was happen to you, I had to try to stop it," Jazz said, explaining, not defending, since Dawn didn't sound angry.

"I appreciate it," Dawn said, smiling a little ruefully, "and I'm glad you're here, because this would be way scary if I was alone — but Wes is gonna give us a lot of grief when we get back."

"Assuming we do get back," Jazz said, peeling off her winter coat. "And . . . get back from where?!"

"Good questions," Dawn said. She took off her own coat, then her sweater, leaving her in a t-shirt and jeans. "It's . . . afternoon, I think. And ugh, hot."

"Yeah, it's hot," Jazz said, stripping off her flannel shirt to reveal a red t-shirt that said, 'The difference between Genius and Stupidity is that Genius has its limits!'

"Do you own any T-shirts without a smartass saying on them?" Dawn asked.

"Huh? No, of course not — why would I?"

Dawn laughed, stood and looked around. "Okay, so . . . game trail over there. Shall we start walking?"

"Nothing better to do," Jazz said, taking a deep breath, trying to steady her nerves. "Little scared, here, Dawn."

"Me, too," Dawn said, and took Jazz's hand as they started walking. "But if you weren't here, it'd be _a lot_ scared."

"Thanks," Jazz said, and squeezed Dawn's hand.

They walked through the woods, dealing with the odd lack of familiar noises by talking quietly, first about guessing where they were, then, when that got depressing, talking about their shared love of books.

They found a stream after a while, and decided to risk drinking from it — then guzzled from it, the water tasting fresh, sweet and wonderful.

"Okay, the trail ends here," Dawn said. "So . . . downstream to civilization, right?"

"Right," Jazz said. "That's how it works in all the fantasy books, anyway."

The turned downstream, walked for a couple more hours — and twilight started to fall.

"Okay, no food, but plenty of water," Dawn said. "And it's warm enough that we won't have to make a fire, which is good, because I was never even a Brownie, let alone a Girl Scout.

"But I can make a shelter — and I think I should, while it's still light enough."

"I can help," Jazz said. "Lean-to?"

"Uh-huh," Dawn said. "Then we just hope it doesn't lean _fro,_ you know?"

"Ouch," Jazz said. "Bad, Dawn. Very bad."

Dawn grinned, stuck out her tongue at Jazz, and started looking around for branches to make a lean-to out of.

They ended up with a decently constructed lean-to, more than long enough, standing three feet high at its open end, angling gently down to the ground over seven feet of distance, and six feet wide. Jazz even made a clever little door of sorts, a woven net of branches that hung down off of the two sticks that supported the high end of the shelter.

The sun hadn't quite done below the horizon when they finished, so they sat outside and looked up at the sky thought the trees for a while.

"Okay, there's a relief," Jazz said as they looked up. "Those are our stars — so this is earth. But . . . um, they're summer stars. That's . . . not good."

"Well, no," Dawn admitted. "But I'm not surprised, since it's so hot. So . . . time travel."

"Time travel," Jazz said. "Geeze, I wish I knew how old Locke is, how long ago he became a Champion, you know?"

"I know the Powers That Be, or the Light, or whoever, froze his age at nineteen," Dawn said. "But he doesn't know how long ago that was."

"Well, pre-industrial age would suck really hard," Jazz said. She sighed, and it came out uneven and watery. "Dawn . . . how will we get back? Maybe . . . maybe we shouldn't have moved from where we came in, or anything. What if . . . what if we moved and that screwed everything up?"

"It won't," Dawn said, putting her arm around Jazz's waist and pulling her closer. "It won't, Jazz. We got here by magic, and that's how we'll have to get back. Just moving . . . that can't screw up a witch's ability to find someone. Once they find someone with that kind of power, they'll find us."

"You sure?" Jazz asked, still sounding on the edge of tears.

"I'm sure," Dawn said. Jazz dropped her head to Dawn's shoulder, and Dawn leaned her head sideways, pressed her cheek against the top of Jazz's head. "I . . . I had friends who were big on the magic. I picked up a lot of stuff from them. In fact . . . well, it wouldn't surprise me if Polly can find us pretty easy. She's on the ball, and she knows us — you better, sure, but we're together."

"So . . . find us, yes," Jazz said. "Get us home . . . ?"

"I'm pretty sure that Wes will find a way," Dawn said. "He's . . . well, he's gotten awful tough, since I first met him. I don't think he's much on giving up, you know?"

"Yeah, I see your point," Jazz said. She raised a hand, wiped away the few tears she'd shed, and said, "Sorry I'm being a baby."

"Hey, no," Dawn said. "Jazz, you aren't, okay? You should have seen me, the first time I got caught up in any of this stuff, back when I was a kid, and Buffy was the Slayer. Disaster area with tears, that was me."

"Yeah?" she said. "What happened?"

"Well, the first time I actually got involved in anything, I got turned into a puppy," Dawn said. "I guess it was the second time, so I'll skip —"

"Wait, whoa!" Jazz said. "You got turned into a puppy?!

"Don't you _dare_ skip that!"

Dawn laughed, and told Jazz about getting turned into a puppy when an old enemy of Rupert Giles, Buffy's Watcher, had come to town and opened a costume shop for Halloween. Dawn had gotten a dog costume, hoping to persuade her mother to let her get a puppy by sheer cuteness — and then Ethan Rayne, Giles's old enemy, had done a spell that turned everyone into whatever they were dressed up as.

"So here I am, a little brown and white beagle-looking puppy," Dawn said, grinning at the expression of 'I will NOT laugh' on Jazz's face, "and Xander, he's all gung-ho army guy, Willow's a ghostly hooker, and Buffy — the Slayer, the baddest of badasses — is an eighteenth century noblewoman, and totally useless against all the kids and people who bought monster costumes from Ethan's shop and got turned into monsters. If not or Angel — Buffy's vampire-with-a-soul boyfriend, I told you about him — we'd have been toast, and I might still be begging for Snausages."

They talked for a while, Jazz leaning comfortably against Dawn, and eventually, Dawn actually yawned.

"Okay," she said. "It's only about seven at home, maybe, but I'm feeling it. Between the adrenaline of the fight and time-travel lag, I'm ready to crash."

"Yeah," Jazz said. they crawled into the lean-to, started working out sleeping arrangements, and Jazz said, "Um. Dawn?"

"Yes?" Dawn said, spreading her coat out on the ground inside the lean-to, knowing that the ground sucked up a lot of body heat, even in warm weather.

"I . . . look, I know you're all confident that Wesley will find us, get us home, but . . . but I'm still pretty scared," Jazz said, studiously looking at her own coat as she spread it out. "And . . . oh, damn. Look there's something . . . I don't know if I'm committing friendship-homicide, here, but there's something I have to say, and — and I have to say it because for all we know, there's a rabid panther out there ready to kill us, or whatever happened that triggered Locke becoming a Champion will wander this way and kill us, or — or we could get stuck here."

"Jazz," Dawn said, looking at her friend, "there's nothing you could say to me that would possibly make you not my friend, short of telling me that you're a serial killer or something else evil like that."

"No, it's not — I'm not a murderer, or even a kidnapper or anything," Jazz said, sitting down cross-legged near the opening of the lean-to and looking at her hands where they lay limply in her lap. "It's . . . I just . . . there's this thing, and it's gonna change things, and I don't know what's scarier, saying it or not saying it, and — dammit!"

"Hey," Dawn said, and reached out to take one of Jazz's hands. "Try saying it. Like I said — we'll still be friends. Really."

"I love you," Jazz blurted.

"I love you, too," Dawn said, smiling. "That's why we'll still be friends after you say . . . whatever."

"No, I — I just said it," Jazz said, sounding scared, and maybe a little sad. "I love you, Dawn Mears. Dawn Summers. Like . . . want-to-kiss-you-love-you. I'm . . . Dawn, I'm _in love_ with you."

"Oh," Dawn said. She sounded surprised, but not at all upset — and she didn't let go of Jazz's hand. "Wow. That's . . . wow."

"Okay, I said it, and you aren't screaming or running away," Jazz said. "That's a good start."

"No, no way, don't be dumb," Dawn said. She squeezed Jazz's hand and said, "That'd be really flattering, Jazz, no matter what. And . . . it's really wonderful to hear you say that. I _like_ that you're 'want-to-kiss-me' in love with me.

"So . . . why don't you?"

Jazz looked up at Dawn sharply, her eyes straining to see in the dark. All she could see of Dawn told her nothing of the other girl's expression, though. Just a silhouette.

"Are you . . . are you sure?" Jazz asked.

"Sure that I want you to kiss me, yes," Dawn said. "Sure that I'm flattered, yes. Sure that I love you, yes. Sure that this is . . . right for me? Really right? Not totally. But I do want you to kiss me . . . and then we'll see. If you can handle that."

"I'll risk it," Jazz said. She moved over to sit beside Dawn, touched the other girl's face . . . and kissed her, gently, but with an undercurrent of urgency.

Dawn kissed back, and her kiss went from as gentle as Jazz's to just as urgent very, very quickly. The warmth of Jazz's lips, the pressure of them made Dawn suddenly very aware of Jazz as a desirable human being . . . and Dawn did feel desire for her.

"Oh, god," Jazz said when they broke, her voice trembling a little. "That was . . . Dawn, no matter what else happens, thank you!"

"Yeah, well," Dawn said, breathing a little hard. "Um, what else happens, I think, is that I ask you to do that again — please?"

In very short order, Dawn found herself lying on her back, Jazz on top of her, her weight feeling like nothing at all, Dawn's hands in Jazz's hair as they kissed repeatedly, urgently, and almost constantly.

After quite some time, Jazz pushed herself up a little and said, "Okay — if we don't stop, I'm gonna do something that's probably going too fast."

"I . . . almost hope you don't stop," Dawn said, gulping air.

"But I think I need to," Jazz said. "Dawn . . . I love you, and I want you — and I don't want to make love to you in a lean-to out in the woods, not the first time. A nice forest glade in a warm rain shower, maybe, in a four-poster bed with sheer hangings and a fire in the fireplace for absolute certain — but here and now . . . isn't how I want it to be. It's going to be special, no matter what, because I love you, but I want it to be romantic-special, not just love-you-special."

"Then you'd better roll off of me, because I want you a whole lot, Jazz Redman," Dawn said, her voice husky. "And it's really hard to think 'no' thoughts with you lying on top of me."

Jazz laughed, a laugh that said she no longer felt afraid of their situation at all, and Rolled sideways. Dawn moved to lay on her side, too, and they faced each other.

"I didn't even think you liked girls," Jazz said, sliding her hand across Dawn's waist, leaving it there. "I feel dumb, now."

"Well, I wasn't absolutely certain that I did, not until you kissed me," Dawn said. She reached out and stroked Jazz's cheek. "But the minute you kissed me, I knew. The second you kissed me."

"Good," Jazz said. "So . . . what made you think you liked girls, maybe?"

"Well, I told you about Willow and Tara, right?" Dawn said. "And Xander? I — when I was twelve and part of thirteen, I had a really big crush on Xander. Then . . . well, sometime after I turned, before I turned fourteen, I stopped crushing on Xander, and started crushing on Tara . . . and eventually on Tara _and_ Willow. I mean — I read that some Wiccan people have more than one partner, and I thought . . . I wanted to be their partner. Their girlfriend."

"Oh, my," Jazz said. "And you only _thought_ you liked girls?"

"I was only fourteen at the oldest," Dawn protested. "Come on, at fourteen, you'll crush on anybody at all attractive who's at all nice to you."

"Yeah, I guess you're right," Jazz said, and laughed. "I had it bad for Miss Delgado when I was fourteen."

"The gym teacher?" Dawn asked. When Jazz nodded, Dawn said, "I can respect that — she's all sorts of hot, and really nice."

"Yeah," Jazz said. "And then the second half of the year, it was Mr. Kelsey."

"Also respectable," Dawn said, thinking of the American History and Civics teacher, who also coached track — and had the build of a decathlete.

"Oh, yeah," Jazz said. "Saw him with his shirt off one day, running with the guys who do cross-country . . . so much yum!

"So . . . you still interested in guys?"

"Uh, well . . . yeah," Dawn admitted, and Jazz felt a dull heat radiating from Dawn's face.

"Relax," Jazz said, and yawned before continuing. "Me, too. Maybe between us, we can get Locke between us . . . ."

Dawn let out a little moan and said, "Are you trying to make me too crazy to sleep, Jazz?"

"No, not really," Jazz said, and yawned again. "But it is a thought worth thinking . . . ."

"Yeah," Dawn agreed. "Jazz . . . I love you."

"I love you, too," Jazz said, and snuggled close. "Good night, Dawn."

"Good night, Jazz," Dawn said.

Five minutes later, they both fell asleep.

In the morning, they woke shortly after sunrise, and Jazz laughed as she said, "Wake up at dawn with Dawn."

"Agh," Dawn said. She rooted in her coat pocket, found a nearly-full tin of Altoids, popped one, and offered the tin to Jazz. "Until we can get to a toothbrush, these will have to do to kill morning mouth."

"Are you kidding?" Jazz said, popping one in her mouth and sucking. "These things might sterilize the mouth of a hyena. Strong — but tasty. Kind of like you . . . ."

"Okay, now, that demands a kiss," Dawn said — and did so. "God. I can't get enough of you."

"And the bad in that situation is . . . where?" Jazz asked.

Dawn laughed, and they went to the stream to get a drink.

Five minutes later, having nothing better to do, they started walking downstream again, holding hands and just . . . delighting in that, even past their rumbling stomachs.

A couple of hours after they started walking, Dawn smelled something heavenly, and raised her head. "Jazz, do you smell . . . ?"

"Peaches!" Jazz said — and they both turned towards the breeze that brought the smell, walked maybe forty yards into the trees, and found a small clearing with a single peach tree in it, the branches heavy with ripe, ready-to-eat fruit — and more than a few birds doing exactly that.

After a breakfast of several peaches each, and picking more of the fruit — as much as they could bundle in Jazz's flannel shirt and Dawn's sweater (tying them into useful pouches reduced the volume — and ruined Dawn's sweater), then went back to the stream and kept going downstream.

About sunset, they stopped again — and Jazz let out a squeal as she straightened from picking up a branch for their lean-to.

"What is it?" Dawn asked, spinning and dropping into a crouch.

"Look!" Jazz said, pointing to the sky.

At first, Dawn didn't know what Jazz was talking about. Pretty orange-and-blue sky, sure, and the contrail just between the cloud line and the orange ball of the sun looked really —

Contrail?!

"Oh, man," Dawn said, letting out a sigh of relief. "A contrail . . . so we aren't pre-industrial revolution, aren't even pre-jet plane."

"Yeah," Jazz said. "And that means that we can understand the world enough to get jobs, raise some money — and maybe let Wesley know where we are."

"How do we do that?" Dawn asked.

"If there are jets, there are lawyers," Jazz said. "If there are lawyers, there are people who will take money to hold onto a letter for a while, then mail it to Wesley when we tell them to."

"But . . . for what, who knows how many years?" Dawn said. "That's probably going to cost a lot. And how do we know we've got a trustworthy lawyer?"

"The first part, I don't know about yet," Jazz said. "But . . . if we can get to Detroit, I can handle the second part. If there are jets, then the law firm my grandpa used is around — their letterhead says they were established in nineteen-twenty-five."

"Okay, so . . . jobs, yeah," Dawn said. "Well, I can definitely handle the physical labor."

"I can wait tables," Jazz said. "Man — jets. Familiar technology. _Air conditioning!"_

Dawn laughed, but agreed with that last bit whole-heartedly.

They went to sleep after making out for a while, snuggled together spoon-fashion, and never mind the heat.

Dawn woke in the full dark to Jazz sitting up — then heard the sound that had probably woken Jazz herself.

Growling — but with words to it.

Dawn reached out slowly, placed a finger over Jazz's lips, then slipped out of the lean-to, holding up the makeshift door that Jazz had again made so that she could get out quietly.

"Come on Jutter," a voice growled. "We're already behind the others. If we lose out on the spoils I'm gonna be pissed."

"Spoils," another voice, presumably that of Jutter, grumbled. "Give me a break. I don't call what we're likely to get from these humans 'spoils' — more like 'three meals and a fuck,' maybe."

"Hagrell's eyes, but you love to bitch, Jutter!" the first voice said. "Look, where else are we going to get meat with none of those damned chemicals the humans put in everything nowadays? You got a better idea?"

"I had one last year!" Jutter said. "But none of you wanted to listen, no, not then! 'Why leave them alive?' 'Why worry?' Dammit, if we'd just raided that commune twice a year, on the quiet like I said, we'd not be out here raiding a bunch of human sheep who won't even fight back! And if you think I like this, Kolrin, if you think I'm going to be quiet about it —"

"Shut up, both of you!" snarled a third voice. "Hagrell's teeth, I'll kill you both if you don't shut up! And Sarud and I will go without you!"

"I am the most powerful of the Desjar Clan!" Jutter said. "To go without me is to risk losing, even to these human mice, if even one decides to stand up!

"And there's no way _you're_ ever going to kill me, Pakdar Child-killer — not when a child is the most you can kill!"

To that, nothing replied. Dawn heard the demons moving along the stream, and she leaned close to Jazz, whispered, "They're planning on attacking humans — I have to stop this. Are you with me?"

"You knock them down, I'll stomp on their balls," Jazz said.

"Good deal," Dawn said. She felt around in her coat, reaching into the lean-to to do so, and came out with a pair of stakes, the only weapons that they had. She handed one to Jazz, said "Better than nothing, right?"

"Yeah," Jazz said. "Hey, there were some heavy-assed broken branches under a tree down the way those things are going — too short for lean-to construction, but they'd maybe make good clubs."

"Lead me to them," Dawn said. "Super-sneaky."

Jazz moved off in the gloom, holding Dawn's hand, and soon they came to the dying tree that Jazz had been talking about. Dawn picked up a heavy branch about as long as her arm, with a big, cudgel-like knot at the end, and Jazz grabbed a similar weapon.

They moved quickly then, passed the four demons (confirming the count by their silhouettes) and waited in the shadows of a tree around a bend in the stream.

Dawn's first good look at the things by moonlight left her a little nervous. They stood about six feet tall before their horns, three of them, two coming up from behind their ears, one seeming to grow up from the nose. The horns added another six inches to their height, and looked very sharp. They had the builds of professional weightlifters, thick and heavily muscled.

"Stay out of the reach of my club," Dawn whispered to Jazz, "but not much farther away than that."

"Got it," Jazz whispered.

The demons passed within six feet of the pair where they stood pressed against a tree trunk. Once the last one passed them by, Dawn stepped out and swung her club at the back of his head.

The demon grunted, and fell face-first on the ground, unmoving. The next one in line turned just in time to see Dawn's club coming at his face — and yelled.

He, too, fell — and then the last two turned to face Dawn, and the closer one snarled and charged at her.

Dawn kicked the charging demon in the head, and knocked him aside — and the second one hit her, tackled her to the ground, and snarled in her face, his breath making her want to vomit. She got her hands on his chest and shoved hard, sent the demon flying off of her, and kipped to her feet — just as the one she'd knocked aside swung at her.

She rolled with the blow as much as she could, not having time to dodge, and fell back to the ground. This time, she made no effort to get up, just swiveled so that she could threaten the demon with her feet.

"Human!" he spat. "Foul little sheep! Get up! Get up, and die like a demon!"

Dawn kipped up again, and saw the second demon coming to stand beside the first. Jazz moved up behind Dawn, murmured, "Other two are dead as hell. Made jelly out of their heads."

"Human," the demon said slowly, "you are brave. I would know — why do you attack when you know you can't win?"

"Your two dead pals might not ask that question," Dawn said. "Now — you want to fight, or are you going to bore me to death?"

The two snarled and charged. Dawn cheated.

She dove to the ground in front of their feet, tripped both, heard the horrible ripe-melon thud of Jazz bashing one's head in, and decided that she should not let the last one get up. Dawn rolled towards the demon, up past his waist, and slammed a heel down on the back of his head. The angle could have been better; she didn't kill him, but did stun him slightly. She got up before he did — and had plenty of time to set herself before he charged. His attack came slowly, a lumbering charge with the arms up to grab — and Dawn grinned.

She dropped her club and turned her right side to him as he closed, grabbed his right wrist in her left hand, levered her right hand up into his armpit, twisted her torso down and left while levering up with her right hand and threw the demon head-first into the tree she and Jazz had hidden beneath.

He hit at about five and a half feet off the ground, horns first — and the stuck in the tree, deeply enough to pin the demon. Dawn scooped up her club again, and bashed the thing's head in.

For a moment, Dawn just stood and panted. Then she heard Jazz speak.

"Whoa," Jazz said, in reverential tones. "Hey, Dawn — look at this."

Dawn turned to see Jazz holding up a heavy leather belt studded with plates that glinted gold in the moonlight.

"I think this is real gold," Jazz said. "Check it out — demons got bling!"

Dawn laughed aloud, and went to check the other demons out, see if they, too had gold ornamentation anywhere on their person — which they did.

"Well," Jazz said as they stood holding several belts and necklaces adorned with gold, "I think we won't have to worry about getting jobs, anyway!"


	14. 13: Himself a Light

Summers Pryce: Chapter 13

Himself a Light

"Okay," Dawn said. "I know it's late — but I think we'd better get a move on. These guys sounded like they were trying to catch up with their buddies, and the buddies may be what Locke fought."

"Crap, good point," Jazz said. "Let's go back and get our stuff — we don't know how far we're going to have to go, better have our coats and such."

They trotted back to the lean-to, grabbed their things, then started moving downstream again, since that had been the direction of the demons, moving as quickly as they could and still be both safe and moderately quiet.

After an hour, they saw light ahead of them, and Dawn felt sure it had nothing to do with sunrise — it appeared too suddenly, and in the north — she thought. Hard to be sure, with following the stream.

They quickened their pace — and came to a small bridge, wooden, old-fashioned, but solid, which they crossed. The light loomed ahead of them, now, and they heard screams . . . .

They came out of the woods on the edge of a small field of green beans — and saw a collection of old-fashioned houses, looking like something out of the eighteenth century, standing around a large grassy meadow with a few picnic tables near the houses.

A horse-drawn buggy stood near each of the houses, and a house on the far side of the meadow had been set afire. A dozen demons — the same type that Dawn had killed some of — stood around the burning house, while one stood at the front and back of each house.

Dawn and Jazz moved closer, saw the demons pushing people back into their houses — except the burning house — and something about the way the people dressed seemed familiar to Dawn — but she couldn't place it. Jazz, however, made it click for her.

"Amish!" Jazz said softly. "Dawn, these people are Amish — they won't fight. The demon said 'human sheep' — that's why!"

"You're right," Dawn said softly. "That's it."

They approached the closest house, just as the demon at the back door turned as the door opened — and fell to the ground, a gurgling hiss escaping him, but no other sound, probably due to the butcher knife sticking out of his throat.

"Karl Locken De Vries!" a voice hissed — and Dawn and Jazz looked at one another. _Locken?_

"Get back here!" the voice continued. "What have you done?! We do not kill!"

"You do not kill, Father," a voice replied. "And I would not kill a person — but if god objects to me killing a thing like that . . . well, he's no god of mine!"

The voice . . . melodious, even while angry, and familiar to both girls.

"Locke!" Jazz whispered — and Dawn nodded.

"You do risk your immortal soul!" Locke's father said. "This is why —"

"Why you refused me _rumspringa_?" Locke asked. "Why you had me baptized without my consent? Why you force me to live in ways I do not want or believe in? Which, Father? All?"

"The English have made you wrongheaded!" Locke's father said. "Karl, what would you do? These monsters cannot be fought!"

"Stop it," Locke said. "Just stop. They aren't 'the English,' father, they're just . . . modern people, that's all.

"And they never made me wrongheaded — I am who I am, Father, and who I am is not who you would have me be. For that, I am sorry. But I will not stand by while these monsters murder our neighbors and my friends."

"How will you fight them, boy?" Locke's father asked. "We have no weapons!"

"I have weapons," Locke answered. "In the forge. I made them myself."

"You — why in god's name would you —?" Locke's father sounded disbelieving, shocked, even angry. "We do not fight! Why would you — how dare you?!"

"For fun," Locke said. "To see if I could. And because . . . well, because I like them."

"Karl, if you go out there, you'll die!" said another voice, a woman's voice.

"Mother, you heard the doctor," Locke said, his voice much more gentle than before. "I've the blood cancer, the leukemia. Nothing could stop me dying.

"So if I die fighting these things . . . at least it will mean something."

"The doctor is English, he could be wrong!" Locke's mother cried. "Or god could make you well again, or —"

"Mama," Locke said softly. "I am not like you — long you've known it. I do not feel that peace is the way, not all the time. There are times when the only answer is to oppose.

"Now is such a time, Mama . . . and I will oppose these monsters that would hurt my family, my friends.

"I love you, both of you, and never mind the arguing we do — but I must do this. I must . . . oppose the darkness of these creatures."

And then he came out the back door, a handsome young man, despite his scraggly beard, slender and pale, well muscled despite his slender build. He wore only gray pants, a plain white shirt and heavy, black boots — and he moved like a dancer, smooth and graceful.

He stopped outside the door, pulled the butcher knife from the demon's throat, and moved sideways, slowly and carefully, aiming for a small, open building. Dawn and Jazz moved back a little, into the edge of the woods, so that he wouldn't see them, and Jazz spoke softly in Dawn's ear.

"Dawn, what do we do?" she asked.

"We watch," Dawn said. "If it looks like he's in deep, gonna-die trouble, we interfere — but Jazz, this is supposed to happen. I think . . . interfering might be bad. We might change things, and he might not become the Champion he's supposed to be."

"Okay," Jazz said. "So . . . you kicking that multi-armed terror out of the time travel circle, that probably ended the threat to his existence?"

"Probably," Dawn said. "But . . . I hope we didn't screw up anything by offing those four demons."

"Ouch," Jazz said, and shook her head. "Man, time travel sucks. Next time, I'm gonna go Greyhound."

Dawn didn't have time to answer that before Locke came out of the forge, carrying a saber in one hand, a heavy dagger in the other, and with another saber belted on, and more daggers in his belt.

They moved to stay in sight of Locke as he strode around the house, moving purposefully and swiftly, striding up to the demon that stood in front of his house and slamming his dagger into its throat.

That started a battle that Dawn might never have believed had she not seen it for herself. None of the demons reacted — and Locke, either from insanity or cunning, went straight to the largest concentration of the creatures, over by the burning house. All the creatures stood facing the flames, and Locke managed to kill two of them before the others noticed, running the first through from behind, reaching around to slash the throat of the second — and causing a fountain of blood that earned him the attention of the others.

Locke didn't really know how to use the swords and knives that he carried — but he did well, regardless. The demons had no weapons but their claws and horns, and he had the edge in reach . . . and in intelligence. He moved through them, got the burning house at his back, and killed them as they came. He took many wounds, deep scratches and one serious stab wound from a demon's horns, that one in the side of his chest.

Both Dawn and Jazz felt the urge to go an help — but by holding onto one another's hands, they found themselves able to resist.

Then the last three demons — Locke had killed more than twenty, and sweat and blood now poured off of him in near-rivers — got smart, and grabbed a hostage, a little girl who looked to be about seven or eight.

"Drop the blades, human!" the demon holding the girl said. "Drop them, or the brat dies screaming!"

Locke didn't even hesitate, just threw the blades aside — and stood, waiting.

"Karl!" the girl whimpered.

"It's all right, Katrina," Locke said. "It's all right, little one.

"I've dropped the blades, monster. Let her go!"

"The others!" the demon said. He lifted Katrina higher, placed the tips of his claws on her throat. "All of them, human!"

Locke shrugged and started pulling daggers from his belt, tossing them aside. He ended with the second saber, tossed it at the feet of the demon who had the girl.

"Let her go," Locke said. "Put her down — and kill me if you can."

"If I can?" the demon said, looking at Locke with open disbelief. "If I — okay, you're gonna die in more pain than you knew existed!"

The demon tossed Katrina aside, and she rolled to her feet — and stood watching as Locke, yelling wordlessly, tackled the demon, fists hammering at him with little skill — but all the strength in his forge-toughened body.

One of the other two demons moved to help the one Locke was beating so mercilessly — and the other moved towards Katrina, who stood hypnotized by the unfamiliar spectacle of violence.

Dawn threw her cudgel as hard as she could, not even thinking, just moving to save the child — and the heavy end slammed into the demon's face, knocking it at least out — though the fountain of blood left her thinking that it might be dead.

Locke, in the meantime, had his hands full. The second demon had grabbed him and pulled him up off of its downed companion, kept trying to hold him — but Locke had an adrenaline rush going, and the demon couldn't get hold of him.

The last one had just climbed unsteadily to its feet when Locke found a way to seriously hurt the one he'd been fighting. Locke wedged his left arm between the horn that grew up from the demon's nose and the two behind its ears, then grabbed the front horn in his right hand. His arms and shoulders bulged and rippled with muscle built in his smithy, and he let out a roar of effort — and pulled the demon's front horn off in a gout of blood.

The wounded demon fell to the ground, screaming and rolling around, and the other one, the one Locke had been beating up, turned and charged at him. Locke turned and, apparently without thinking, rammed the horn in his hand into the chest of the charging demon. It screamed — and fell to the ground.

Locke looked around, turned in a slow, unsteady circle — then fell to the ground, his breathing uneven, blood oozing from his various wounds. Little Katrina started towards him — and light, pure, white-gold light, flared into existence over Locke's beaten and bloody form.

"Karl Locken De Vries," said a voice that seemed to come from the light, a voice that seemed both male and female, deep and powerful, high and sweet. "You have stood against the Darkness at the risk — and the accelerated expense — of your own life. You fought to save the lives of others, many of whom you care for — and just as many for whom you care almost nothing.

"Would you fight on, Karl Locken De Vries? Stand again against the Dark, stand in and for the Light you so love?"

"If . . . if I could, I would," Locke said. "But . . . I think it's a little . . . a little too late. I feel . . . it hurts. And I feel sick. I think . . . I think I made things worse. Made myself sicker."

"You did," the voice said. "You will not live the six months the doctor gave you. You have . . . perhaps ten days, even fourteen.

"Yet we ask again . . . will you fight, Karl Locken De Vries? Will you give what life you have in the service of the Light? Will you oppose the Dark with your remaining breath?"

"Show me . . . show me how," Locke said, "and I will fight them so long as I live!"

"Then you will live," the voice said — and the light changed, became more golden than white, then more white than gold. "You will be healed, and you will stand as Light's Champion . . . for as long as you so choose."

Locke gasped — and lifted into the air, floated with his arms down at his side, his legs hanging straight. All over his body, lines of light appeared, symmetrical and beautiful. Dawn recognized the lines, the patterns, as those of what Wesley had thought to be tattoos when they first saw them, and wished she could see them light up like this again.

"You will live, Karl Locken De Vries," the Light said again. "And you will stand.

"Now . . . let your training begin."

The light went out — and Locke went with it, vanishing into thin air.

"That was the most gorgeous thing I've ever seen," Jazz said, her voice awed. "Present company excepted."

"KATRINA!" a woman's voice yelled. "KATRINA!"

"Here, Mama," the girl said, staring at the place where Locke had vanished. "I'm not hurt, Mama."

"Oh, praise the lord!" the woman said, rushing out of the darkness and scooping the girl up. "Child — what happened to Karl De Vries? We thought . . . it looked like . . . ."

"I think . . . Mama, I think the angels came for him," Katrina said. She looked at the place where Locke had vanished, and the demon bodies nearby. "I think . . . Mama, I think Karl's going to be an angel, now."

"He saved you, Katrina," the woman said. "He saved you — so he'll always be an angel to me."

Dawn grinned, squeezed Jazz's hand, said, "Hey — let's go get some sleep, what do you say? I'm wiped — and I think I'm going to have really nice dreams, after that light."

"Me, too," Jazz said. "And tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow, we ask these people where we are, and where the nearest town is." Dawn led Jazz down a narrow path between two fields, and into the woods. "We get there — and we see what we can do about letting Wes know where we are."

"Sounds like a plan," Jazz said. "And we sell some demon bling, get a hotel — and get a real night's sleep."

"And a shower," Dawn said. "And clean clothes."

"Stop, you're making me drool," Jazz said, almost moaned.

They went a mile into the woods, built a new lean-to, and slept until morning, curled together like cats.

In the morning, after a breakfast of peaches, they walked back to the little community of Amish — and found the place bustling, people working at clearing away the remnants of the burned house. They saw no sign of demon bodies — and the house of Locke's family stood closed and with the curtains all drawn.

They approached a pair of women who stood watching the men work from near a picnic table loaded down with drinks, and Dawn said, "Excuse me? Um, hi. I'm sorry to bother you — but we're sort of lost. Can you tell us how to get to the nearest town?"

The older of the two women turned, took in their dress and appearance, and frowned. She looked around, called, "Elias, could you speak to these English girls? They are lost."

A hale and hearty man of about fifty came over, gave Dawn and Jazz the same appraising-disapproving look, and said, "Where would you go, young misses?"

"The nearest town, please," Dawn said. "We're really lost."

"Canajoharie is four miles south of here, and a little west," Elias said. "The road lies a half mile down that way." He pointed to a dirt road running west. "Albany is sixty miles east of there — if that's where you're bound."

Dawn tried hard not to let her relief show — Albany! This was New York, and just knowing that much made her feel better.

"That's great, sir, and thank you," Dawn said. "Thank you very much."

Her politeness seemed to thaw him a little, and he said, "If you were to wait half an hour, Joss Meyer will be going to town for supplies for the building of his house. He might give you a ride, if you do not mind the horse and buggy."

"We wouldn't mind," Jazz said. "That would be neat, I think. Thank you. Can you point Mr. Meyer out to us? So we can ask him?"

"I will send him to you when he is ready," Elias said. "Now — you both look too fair for the sun. My house is yonder, by the trail. Sit you on the porch, out of the sun. Miriam, give them drinks, make them comfortable."

"Yes, Elias," the younger woman said. "Would you like water or lemonade?"

"Water to start, I think," Dawn said. "I'll probably drain the glass a time or two right here."

"Me, too," Jazz said.

They each drank two glasses of water, then accepted lemonade, and let Miriam — a pretty-plain woman of twenty-five or so — walk them over to Elias's porch and sit them in the shade.

"Well, now all we need is to find out when we are," Jazz said, "and we're set."

"Point," Dawn said. "But I think we'd better wait for a newspaper — asking the year? Likely to be thought very weird."

Half and hour later, they climbed into the back seat of Joss Meyer's horse-drawn buggy, and reveled in the faint breeze generated by their passage. Meyer seemed very taciturn — probably upset over his house burning down — so they stayed quiet, didn't push for conversation.

Forty-five minutes after leaving the little Amish settlement, the buggy stopped in front of a hardware store in the little town of Canajoharie, NY, and Dawn and Jazz climbed out.

"Thank you very much, Mr. Meyer," Dawn said. "I wish there was something we could do to repay you."

"Just remember the kindness, and pass it on when you can," Meyer said. "That is all I ask."

"We will," Dawn said. "Thank you, sir."

Five minutes later, Dawn laid the smallest of the gold chains — a bracelet — on the counter of the town's one pawn shop, and the owner picked it up.

"My, that is nice," he said. He hefted it, looked it over, and muttered, "Twenty-four karat, by god — and no mistake.

"I can give you the gold-weight value, minus ten percent. For processing and such."

"I'll take it," Dawn said, thinking that wasn't so bad, and reminding herself that things would probably be much cheaper now than they were in her time.

The pawnbroker weighed the bracelet, worked an adding machine, then came back and had Dawn fill out a form — but he didn't even ask for ID! She put down her name as "Dawn King," and gave her address in Sunnydale, and the man counted a hundred and fifty-eight dollars and forty cents out to her.

"Thank you, sir," Dawn said. "Can you tell me where I might buy a newspaper? And if there's a bus stop here in town where we can catch a bus to Albany?"

He answered both questions to the affirmative, and they walked two doors down and bought a copy of the Albany Times Union, then started down the street to the drugstore that served as a bus station.

"August the ninth of — nineteen sixty-nine?" Dawn said. "Man. I'm years from being born, and Locke — he's something like fifty years old!"

"But he looks really good for fifty," Jazz said, grinning. "Hey, wanna be a hippie?"

"Not my thing, so much," Dawn said. "But . . . wow. This is really weird. Not bad, but weird."

The found the drugstore, bought two tickets on the next bus to Albany, which would leave forty minutes later, and sat at the lunch counter to eat, both having big meals to make up for the last couple of days.

Before one in the afternoon, they'd arrived in Albany. By two, they'd sold the rest of their gold and found themselves staggered by the money they had — almost three thousand dollars!

"Demons with bling are your friends," Jazz said solemnly. "Clothes?"

"Clothes," Dawn agreed.

They bought simple, sturdy clothes for seven days apiece, spent ridiculously small amounts on them, by the standards of two thousand and two, then got a hotel.

"I'd offer to fight you for the first shower, but I'd lose," Jazz said with a dramatic sigh. "Flip a coin for it?"

"We could do that," Dawn said, sounding a tad nervous. "Or . . . well, we could just . . . you know, shower together . . . ?"

Jazz looked up at Dawn, amazed delight on her face, and said softly, "Um, that could . . . go places."

"I kind of hope so," Dawn said. "But . . . if this isn't romantic enough, that's cool, too."

"Well . . ." Jazz said, looking thoughtful, "going places doesn't absolutely have to mean 'going the distance' . . . . We could save that for . . . for tonight? When we're clean and happy and well fed and a little more . . . calm?

"And we can make it romantic ourselves, Dawn."

Dawn smiled, nodded — and they went to the shower together, where they got clean — and got to know each other's bodies quite well, without actually making love.


End file.
